SHEEN TALKS: DAVID MAMET

[Applause] [Music] good evening thank you so much for coming I'm Dave ma'am and I'm a gag writer I remember very very well 15 I may have been 60 years ago washing love a bishop Fulton sheen on television I'm very very glad to be here today and I'm grateful as are the members of the anarchist company for the the graciousness and hospitality of the Sheen Center and I'm gonna read a little bit then I'll be glad to answer any questions we're doing a play here about forgiveness of the anarchist one woman took two women one woman has committed a terrible crime and she served a lifetime in prison she wants to be released she says she's discovered God her record proves that she's dedicated herself in prison to good works her jailer warden a parole officer it's not clear who has to rule on the other woman's fitness for release that's the play the prisoner says I found God and God has found me the jailer says if you are redeemed prove it to me please and allow me to free you so I said I would speak on faith and forgiveness in the theater and here's how I think they're all bound up together question is what is what is faith so faith is different from trust I trust that the young married couple will fight and that the woman will run home to mama and eventually they'll be reconciled I trust that the Cubs are going to blow it in August it's very different from belief faith is different from belief was belief in contemporary understanding as far as I can see it is generally propositional that is I believe that I proclaim that my Redeemer liveth I believe in the resurrection I believe in global warming up in social justice we do not generally rehearse our faith to ourselves and to others but we do rehearse our beliefs to others saying these are the propositions which I endorse the many people who are troubled dissuaded or tortured by their inability to as it were believe in God and most of the trouble stems from their inability to adopt what they suppose to be theological propositions God is good all-powerful vengeful merciful and so on each of which can be discarded or the totality may be other than embraced then leaving the person to say since I discarded this proposition or since I did not embrace the totality therefore that must mean I don't believe in God but we note that the rejection of the divine is itself conditional that is I you he or she says they don't believe in God as God advertised as being good has perhaps quote permitted evil which we all see around us every day Warren thus does not believe in God but in the proposed attributes of God how could the God that is to say in which I don't believe have permitted the Holocaust well obviously God doesn't so therefore God and whom I still don't believe obviously does not exist but the argument is of course curiously self-refuting for if one actually believed in or in the sense of knew that God didn't exist why would he or she be troubled by the presence of evil attributing it to a malfeasance on the part of God who if so facto is not disproved but reproved for ungodlike behavior so belief like any other word is tainted people proclaim their belief in candidates and social program in education and private enterprise and the word belief is here used to buttress a lack of faith for if one truly had faith in the above as one does and the failure of the Cubs one would one would not need to profess belief one does not express belief that an object thrown from the window will fall to the ground belief them is at some level entwined with the metaphysical faith and its proclamation is more closely guarded than belief faith is not so generally proclaimed and its utterance is in the contemporary general society of the West indited is irrational if we examined belief our prata stations generally are actions of fealty and in the contemporary world these are not fealty to historically accepted objects of faith God religion and worship but to a new deity called human reason this is curious that we believe in human reason as in most moments of most days we act unreasonably we remarry the same type of unsuitable spouse we vote for the same corrupt arrogant politicians wearing different suits we purchased the same hunk of junk every few years drive ourselves off the lot and we drive ourselves and our families miserable and yet were hooked on the notion of the primacy of reason we believe in our own reason and in the blandishments of those who flatter us by a similar appeal we give them our money our time our votes our hearts our freedom our lives choose one or many the appeal to belief in reason short-circuits the rational consideration of cause and effect we're awed by the rabbit coming out of the Hat and thrilled by the politicians who say they're going to return to one and a half dollars in benefits for every dollar taken in taxes where's the other half dollar come from it doesn't exist what's what's being exchanged is not money but belief which is fungible believe in me and I'll do this irrespective of and you can continue to believe irrespective of any of the results of your belief so what you get to do is exercise your belief you get to believe in magic what about faith we can have faith in God and what does it mean it doesn't mean things are going to work out as we wish which is that will receive the scarlet ribbons that's not faith but a transaction which is the attempt to trade a vow of loyalty for scarlet ribbons or health or success or so on does faith mean that whether or not we get what we want things will work out for the best again no for here we have two questions the more important of which is how do I know it's for the best the best for whom for me know as things generally don't usually work out the best for me the best for Humanity what does that mean that suffering or trauma for some may eventually affect good for more again how would we know and such supposed faith is not faith but and there's nothing wrong with this it may be called altruism or it may be called resignation that things are generally going to work out for the best but faith is not a it's not a transaction but it's an acceptance not the things will work out well for me or that things will somehow work out for the quote best but that everything is in the hands of God and God's ways are unknowable the rabbi's said that life's a narrow bridge and the most important thing is not to be afraid and they also said that everything is in the hands of God except the fear of God and so we're invited to have faith which is different from trust and different in belief were invited to have faith in God okay this or the next question is an easy one what's God God is a mystery beyond our own understanding is God good depends on our understanding of good does it mean I get my scarlet ribbons or that famine ended in Africa I may use my reason to observe that such results are good but it's difficult to reason myself out of the notion that I know better than God how can I know better than God I don't know God is except that God's a mystery it's just a name for that mystery beyond our understanding if we have faith that everything's in the hand of God if we see around us in on ourselves great tragedy we may in perceiving that if we set aside our reason for a second feel an affinity with God the Haasan's were a a branch of Jewish mysticism that started in the late 18th century that preached the the immediacy of a connection to the divine in this they were very much in the tradition of Jesus who said and it comes from the Old Testament - it's not far away it's not beyond it's not in the heaven it's right here it's right now you can have an immediate connection with God's God according to the hostage is the mystery which suffers god suffers with us an understanding expressed in the mystery of Jesus the hostage say further that were offered this connection to God this immediate connection to God not only to participate in but curiously to alleviate God's sufferings how through sharing them through study prayer and acts of righteousness if everything's in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven this would be the only gift of worth to the divine the divine doesn't require the slaughter of sacrifices of animals that have I made the animals the only thing not in the control of the divine is the human spirit and the first thing that we humans did and being granted our humanity was to sin we can repair the divine the hazard say through righteousness can this be proved not quite we'd like to believe it but belief can't be coerced we do not for example believe that fire burns we know it can we believe god suffers but we can accept it much in the same way that we can accept Pascal's wager right if if God exists be a good idea to pray if God doesn't exist what does the prayer cost me so does God suffer we can accept it in the same way that we accept other rituals ritual prohibitions and observances for example ritual purity kashrut halal and Lent we accept that do we understand it actually no all of the rational suggestions finally falls short were ordered and it's a special category in the Jewish tradition of Commandments who order to do it and we aren't told the reason why we just call just told go do it but we can through ritual act in ways which facilitate our proximity to divine the ritual can take us there now we do this all the time we engage in rituals for different celebrations we dress differently for a party and then for a job interview we were a military uniform or a wedding dress not from a belief in the powers but out of respect for the activity involved does such a tower belief no but it's an act of commitment and an inverse reading of Freudianism our actions irrespective our beliefs can change our beliefs much more effectively actually than our beliefs can change our actions the Book of Leviticus specifies ritual dress ritual construction ritual utensils ornaments behaviors and and chief among them sacrifices the temple sacrifices in the Old Testament were the sacrifices of blood and it's pure the purifying nature of blood and the sullying nature of blood are dealt with at length in the five books of Moses as they are in the tradition of Christianity see the blood of Jesus and the blood of the Lamb we also see the tradition of blood and the magic of blood carried out in the blood libel it's been asserted against the Jews for a couple of thousand years then we Jews bake the blood of Christian children and to matzos why blood well the Hasidic masters the Hasidic rabbi say here's the reason for the ritual sacrifices people need to see blood God doesn't need blood God made the blood people need to see blood we note two things here one is the ritual of circumcision with it at which the the father of the son traditionally faints I know I did it myself and the others the crucifixion the ceremonies of both circumcision in the crucifixion are an attempt to get past ritual murder and the human need for blood we say at the circumcision we say of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ I'm not gonna do that again in a sacrifice the human urge to viciousness is perhaps acted out and perhaps us waged 20th century rational thought though dismisses ritual sacrifices and substitutes in its stead repetition that is the constant reenactment through so-called entertainment of the urge for blood which is not turned to good uses and we can call it terrorism sadomasochism rape novels and murder murder movies but the reenactment doesn't prove anything because it has to be repeated constantly it isn't finalized there's no catharsis that's merely merely an awakening of bloodlust the crucifixion and the the bris you know de bris is the the innate you digs old the the Jewish male child the end of his foreskin is cut off and and thrown away that's good this a ritual circumcision and it's it decried by a lot of left-leaning people today including many Jews as as Savage but it works it's better than killing the kid when it cries perhaps the the crucifixion and the breasts are final something very very basic has been altered at a shocking way and one may take from it a transformation and a lesson the basis of true faith is confession may be said that the most basic confession is of sin and the most basic sin is of original sin and I've been thinking about original sin for decades and I think I finally begin to have a little bit of a handle on it I understand it like this we're born flawed our reason is a magnificent adaptive mechanism just like and no better than the long neck of the giraffe and it will eventually kill us all off as any adaptive mechanism will our rationality gifts us with fairly endless sorrow we can confess through original sin through admittance of our personal sin and through that cry for help which only comes from having hit bottom but saying this is not only my nature it's human nature God would you help me we can confess having hit bottom that we are not in control that's something else other than ourselves in our reason and our lusts ruled the world and that what rules the world is a mystery and so on confession we may actually be gifted with the understanding that God suffers with us and that we can call on God so where can we confess which is to say celebrate in humility a union with the divine if we go to church or synagogue we put on a stiff collar and we complain to our spouse you know you're going to make us late you know that don't you we sacrifice our time are confident you might say our peace of mind and our complacency the very crutching at our spouse reveals that we're anxious and touchy and we don't know why when we go to a religious observance here's why we're on our way to a sacrifice not of blood but certainly of time and perhaps of arrogance and self regard the conscious sacrifice of time is out of adjustment to the upset which and occasions we don't get anxious when we go into a ballgame everybody arrives on time with the Theia to see a movie most people arrive late at both at the church and also at the theater why duh the theater is a religious we may reason therefore the theater is a religious observance we sacrifice we donate our time and we give our half-shekel as it were everyone has to give a half shekel at - at the that's the census of the Israelites and here we see a religious ceremony acted out it's a survival the actors in the audience participate in the ceremony both don ritual clothes the lights go down both part its participate in a ritual celebration and confession of human imperfection the audience then realizes this link between the church and the theatre subconsciously how can we tell they show up late they argue about what time to leave the house they argue about who has the tickets they they lose the tickets they refine the tickets they take their seats flustered we don't believe we don't behave that way at the hockey game the audience comes to the theatre to be moved by a mystery the mystery is that each thinks him or herself wise and good and we destroy each other in ourselves the commercial treatment of these ideas are action films rape films pseudo and outright pornography passages today's love story one does not show up late and flustered for these entertainments they really finally they may cytus but they don't move us there is in them no fear of God which is to say no inspiration they reduced the celebration of an attempt to come close to the divine to an orgy and the rabbi's said that all sins are generally all all sins are basically the sin of the golden calf we've been told to do a but we get a little bit anxious so we say we do B we're told Moses is going up the mountain he's going to talk to God oh you can hear them he'll be back in an hour and a half whoops and so now it's an hour and 40 minutes late let's let's worship the devil but the theater straddles religion and entertainment it vacillates however minutely back and forth and more often than not veers toward the former and veers toward religion for the protagonist in a play as we understand ourselves that's all sup there the play can be attuned to our self-esteem do good and don't do bad see how the bad person ended up bad and the good person ended up good and we may nod yes I understand we should do likewise but we forget that play as we leave the theater we knew the lesson coming in we didn't learn anything and we weren't meant to learn anything we meant to have we went to have a communion with part of our soul we didn't have that so we're going to take what we can get and we wanted to talk about the wonderful costumes or the play may preach the play may say geez don't you know how bad you are you know how bad you are you white people you black people you Israelis you capitalists you communist you Americans watch this space and we might enjoy the self-flagellation because we showed up we sacrificed our time we paid our half shekel anybody ever go to a bad sermon well okay you're going to leave and you're going to congratulate yourself through having through having us afterward right you're entitled to you're entitled something or mind you a play can approach the mystery by inviting us into the mystery that we generally strive to do good and that we do evil that we injure ourselves that we injured the divine that God suffers that the hero tries to do goodness thwarted and at the end of the play perhaps the hero discovers that he or she is sinned and in the discovery is cleansed of arrogance and this is called tragedy to the extent the play is logical that is that it's asking us neither to disregard nor suspend our disbelief but rather to sit and lend our attention until such a point is the progression of things against reason to that extent we are one with the play and one with the protagonist and at the end of the play are a surprise shot chastened and humbled as he or she we say wait a second you did good and I don't know how you could have done differently in scene one two two three four five six but at the end of the play that's led you to your own destruction what can we learn from tragedy that forgiveness exists proclaiming forgiveness is one way of attempting to deal with anger and affront do we need to forgive each other curiously the rabbi's say we don't they say we need to treat each other rationally and justly and we need to overcome anger if those who have offended us asked for forgiveness we're free to grant it or not as moved in to the extent we are moved in their levels of forgiveness first is that we can bear to hear the person's name the next is perhaps we can bear to be in a room with them the next is perhaps we could spend an evening with them the next is perhaps we do business with them next is perhaps there's a complete restoration of the mixture as before forgiveness has to be based upon contrition and restitution there can't be any confer giveness without contrition and restitution and it is ours in the Jewish tradition to give or to withhold God's forgiveness is something else again there's no forgiveness here without complete confession which is the great existential pain which is the true sacrifice this sacrifice is the obliteration of ego in our all before the mystery and that's why we come late to the theater thank you [Applause] [Music] Thanks I'm sure you guys got some good questions I'll be glad to attempt to give you my opinion any members of my family are in the audience I know that they're all saying Oh dad not that yes/no hi thank you very much for your talk you're welcome I read in an interview a couple years ago that you said that the Bible that you're a big fan of the Bible it wasn't long enough and it answered or addressed a lot of our ineffable questions you've mentioned a few books already like Leviticus I was thinking of job as you were talking about the you know the mystery of God's workings as a writer and as a person what are some stories or books in the scriptures that have the most meaning for you well I like them all I mean my my acquaintance with the New Testament is I read it several times like wanes with the the Old Testament is the five books of Moses is a fairly extensive the the Jewish Bible is divided up into three parts that call the the Torah the prophets and the the writings of the writings are those things which are not for our prophets and my I am most conversant with the Torah which is the the five books of Moses and was grabbed by eleven questioners have the great thing about the Torah because there's nobody in it that you want your children to be like so jolly good read anybody else got any questions we're good you'll get you in a second soon as somebody behind you with much more I really loved your your comparison of church and theater being late for that's great the level of obviously in your movies which I've seen I haven't seen actually had to see to play that one broke up years ago but the depth of reading you've done on this is fascinating and I'm wondering if you feel and in the theater in general when you've credibly grapple with big ideas for lack of a better term do you feel that you're almost alone in that or at least it's just the level of articulate miss about this is very deep is that something you've found in theater in general in your your experience over the years that people have this depth of concern and and and articulate being able to take a little bit well I don't know I've you know I'm very for Jeff and Dennis about fifty years I get to sit alone in a in a bare room by myself every day and think about stuff while napping and two things I get to do an addition to napping is I get to write a lot and I get to read a lot and one of the main things I like about this the current them what I call that stuff the Internet is that if you come across any reference in any book you can go doink and have that book there the next day so you can follow the books down the rabbit hole so my reading has been rather extensive and constant for about sixty years and if it's not useful I'll read it yeah you sir I found it interesting what you had to say about blood sacrifice and a human mood for that have you thought about the concept of martyrdom and how that would fit into that concept oh that's a very good question you know there was a guy called Thomas Reid and Thomas Reid was the Speaker of the House of as I believe maybe in this 1880s a very very powerful man and they say he would rather make a quip than a friend and he said God plus one there's a majority a martyr is one who's killed while the votes are still being counted that great yeah I don't know what I think about martyr there may be other things I know there are things worth living for and I know there are things worth dying for and I know there are hold there are holy martyrs you know and some of them they're called by that name and some of them aren't but yet are that nonetheless irrespective of deed irrespective of the of the award of martyrdom I don't know what do you think I don't know [Music] yes indeed it is indeed it is oh the question I would ask of Martyrs is this is gonna my racket is the theater so my question would be what do you do for an encore someone else I'm mr. Manon thank you for your talk true and false is a very important book for me in my approach to the theater and understanding it or trying to and one of the things I found so appealing about your treatment of acting in the theatre in that book is you know just a very down-to-earth no-nonsense kind of attitude which I see reflected in your talk this evening about ritual and about the approach to the mystery so I guess my question is about where that leaves room for this mystical element that we're talking about tonight you hear it talked about a lot in religious circles or in artistic circles in sort of like fluffy language that is for me very difficult to grasp I'm reading this book by bullish laughs key where he says that acting is the life of the human soul receiving its birth through art and frankly I don't know what the that means but when I read your words about you know spending my time and my energy sacrificing it to try to come in touch with the mystery that's that's resonating on some level so I guess I just asked you to speak a little bit more to this mystical or spiritual component to what's happening when we get together and act well what's happening to get together an act as the people on stage of putting on a play for you nice people out there that's the end of it that's it that's all that there is the people like Richard bolus lot ski and Stanislavski and meyerhold and backed off and are entering our tote all the there's hundreds of people and I probably read tens of books on as a kid at the neighborhood playoffs about people trying to understand the mystery of the theater and the reason they wrote those books is all of them were directors which meant that they had no idea what's going on because as my dear friend rest in peace Mike Nichols said a director's job comes down to why don't you try it upstage of the couch maybe a couple of more questions that you know will let you go home anyone since I've enjoyed some of your work as a playwright and as in film work as well are you working on something that deals with these themes because one of the things that I miss like one of the things that I'm noticing in the theater and in the film world in the entertainment world is that we don't deal with ideas very often it seems to me that the world of entertainment is getting more and more fluffy if that's not the wrong word more superficial and it seems to me that your plays deal with deeper darker things and make us look at ourselves in a particular manner that I don't think general entertainment let's just say it's rare these days are you working on something that deals with these things that you discussed tonight that we can look forward to well I'm always working on it I mean I might put the question of a dramatist at least my questions what in the world is going on here I always said you know I never had never questioned the fact that God exists I have no idea what I'm doing here so actually I wrote something for Edie Falco about about a preacher and in a small town and I hope to do it with eating but they said at all the studios out there that's a little bit who wants to do that could she be having an affair with a dolphin [Applause] yeah any ideas for a title question one of the best things that I've read from you is Beckett I believe in 2008 in the Village Voice and I'm curious how your work has was impacted by those thoughts since then and what your reflections are on that article slash essay that you wrote then yeah I wrote an article for The Village Voice I was doing a place of a political play called November and I wrote an article but political civility in the Village Voice published it and put it unfortunate title on it so I became a non-person to the to the liberal media to the left and to the college's which meant that a lot of people stopped talking to me I'm so happy [Applause] but I did a lot of reading a lot of study about politics and natural law and came to the astounding conclusion that anyone who does a similar study will come to that the United States is founded upon the Constitution and the Constitution curiously is founded on the Bible that that's where the United States Constitution comes from it comes from the hard wrought vicious interchange of people who had differing ideas about how we should get along and roughed out a very simple 20 page memorandum on the religious and in their terms very much the Christian it's a Christian application of practical ideas about how we take opposing viewpoints in such a way that they're generally going to be fair to the greatest number for for the greatest amount of time so that's what I came up with that killed him yeah yes sir no I don't believe in it I don't believe in the devil that's a very very good question I believe that we human beings are flawed and I know that a lot of other people believe it was the first thing we learn in the Bible everything's hunky-dory until God gives us the first commandment and what do we do we break it and were banished from the Garden of Eden but it's the if there's something in the human consciousness which is not which is not quite right what the question is why and the hassid's say God is broken that these shards of light were sent down that these these capable AMD what it was what is it the vessels of light were sent down and they broke and that we can repair them but I mean each of us you know in the dark night when we run out of Jack Daniels might say yes I know what a devil is it's me who else would it be okay how about one more question yeah this and then two more questions you want to get a good one over there sure comedy is just like tragedies if people said a difference in comedy and tragedies is is is wholeness a tragedy is you find out that you've been sleeping with your mother you killed your father you're the cause of the plague on themes and comedy is you open a can of tuna fish you cut your thumb on it you get blood poisoning and you die so tragedy and comedy are very very closely aligned and the end of comedy of course is that God intercedes the God comes out of them of the machine and although we've done everything absolutely wrong and broken every commandment yet there's grace and everything that's put a right and on Yom Kippur which is the Jewish day of atonement in the afternoon The Book of Jonah is read and the rabbi's say that why is the Book of Jonah read Jonah says God says Jonah go to Nineveh that great city and cry out against that Jonah said I'd rather now is not good for me right so he tries to run away tries to run away tries to run away it gets on a boat everything goes wrong at the boat that everybody realizes on the boat that there is a curse on the boat someone is acting contrary to the will of God Jonah says okay it's me they take him they throw him overboard that's going to be the end of the story except he's swallowed by a big fish glub glub glub glub glub the big fish spews him out three days later he happens to be at Nineveh oh my god what am I gonna do he goes to Nineveh and he walks around then of her and he says in 30 days Nineveh will be destroyed unless you embrace God and they say okay and they do and so through everybody say why you read the Book of Jonah on Yom Kippur after it's a joke right in the middle of this celebration of many Astrid one of which is tragedy they say let's not forget comedy it's good to have a laugh once in a while and one one more woman back there yes so I was I'm interested in your premise of the anarchist and the notion of proving yourself as being rehabilitated in someone else then being the arbiter of whether or not you are rehabilitated or remorseful and then the notion of forgiveness being a redeeming quality and you know is it up to us to redeem someone else or can we redeem ourselves without another person's forgiveness and I just was wondering if you wanted to or care to share a personal perspective about that like are we redeemed or you know are we capable of redeeming another person well here's what I think it's very good question I personally believe that we experience grace one week and overcome anger right when we can say of another person I I get it I understand why they did it they were absolutely wrong I was absolutely wronged by them I never want to see them again but I don't wish them ill that's a certain kind of that's a certain kind of forgiveness so some kind of grace and devolvement because we aren't carrying around anchor right on the other hand it's not moral in my understanding to forgive people who haven't wronged you to say oh so-and-so did a terrible terrible thing I'm going to offer them my forgiveness you don't have that right I don't think one has that right it's wrong for people to go around apologizing on my behalf for acts I didn't commit that's bladder right there's certainly worth in forgiveness and is worth and getting close to the divine which can be done in understanding our own brokenness but doesn't mean I got to take the guy out to dinner and that's what I think and thank you all very much for your kind attention [Music] [Applause] you [Applause]

Channel: Sheen Talks

Views: 2,449

Rating: 4.6923075 out of 5

Keywords: david mamet, mamet, playwright, play, theater, forgiveness

Id: FrHSQbLlFkQ

Length: 44min 47sec (2687 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 14 2018