Two Crows. Choose your caption.

I saw Home, by David Storey, performed by Ralph Richardson as Jack and John Gielgud as Harry, in NYC in 1971. It was one of the great moments of my life in theatre. Today when I saw these two crows on a line, and one flying over them, it came to my mind.

HARRY: The past. It conjures up some images.
JACK: It does. You’re right.
HARRY: You wonder how there was ever time for it all.
JACK: Time. . . Oh. . . Don’t mention it.
HARRY: A fine cane.
JACK: What? Oh, that.
HARRY: Father had a cane. Walked for miles.
JACK: A habit that’s fast dying out.
HARRY: Oh, yes. 
JACK: Knew a man, related to a friend of mine, who used to walk twenty miles a day.
HARRY: Twenty!
JACK: Each morning.
HARRY: That really shows some spirit.

***

JACK: Isn’t that Parker? (Looking off. )
HARRY: No…N-no…. Believe his name is Fielding.
JACK: Could have sworn it was Parker.
HARRY: No. Don’t think so…. Parker walks with a limp. Very slight.
JACK: That’s Marshall.
HARRY: Really. Then I’ve got Parker mixed up again. 
JACK: Did you see the one who came in yesterday?
HARRY: Hendricks.
JACK: Is that his name?
HARRY: I believe that’s what I heard.

It’s all subtext. What they’re thinking, not what they’re saying. Which is how life is most of the time. It takes a great actor to endow those lines with meaning and hold an audience on the edges of their seats, but Gielgud and Richardson. My god. 

In 1971 I thought it was brilliant how Storey got the rhythms of aging men and daily life. Harold Pinter did the same kind of thing. Now I see those crows and I think of Storey, Gielgud, Richardson; and then I think of Sue and me. Could easily be the two of us, and we wouldn’t be acting. I’m the one with the cane. Such rich pools of images and memories all old people have.

No photoshop was used. This is just as it came, converted to B&W, which it almost was anyway.

P.S. I had a feeling I had mentioned this play before. Sure enough. Thank god for tags. Apologies for saying it all again. I see I have begun to repeat myself. Again.