My Dinner with Andre

Thirty-six year old New York playwright/actor Wallace Shawn isn't looking forward to the dinner he has scheduled with who he once considered a friend, former Broadway director Andre Gregory, who he has not seen in years. Andre left the profession to travel to the far corners of the world. Wally has heard from mutual friends that Andre has "gone crazy" from his experiences. During dinner at an upscale French restaurant, the two old friends largely talk about Andre's experiences, which often entailed applying what he knew of improvisation from the theater but applying it to real life, whether or not it be with people associated with the theater in some respect. Emerging from Andre's description of those experiences to Wally, the two enter into a philosophical discussion about life on such directly related topics as: if people in western society are living as if in a trance; if one can truly proverbially survive on such mundane and habitual items as chicken and electric blankets, and if not if one can find experiences to get out of the "chicken" diet anywhere if one is only willing to look; if those experiences are meant for that one person or if they are just coincidental to the person; if one should at every moment be striving to do something to be considered purposeful; and if labels are solely a mechanism to have some grounding.