The site is a shell and hardly more,
It’s the annexed appendix of the Paramount before,
Do you pack 400 into such a slim space,
Or propose an idea of a different sort of place,
And remember the
theatre
carts and the shows they put on,
where the sets are mobile and thetrappings are gone,
Of fly towers, and change rooms, and up stage and down,
So give up the costumes and props and present the performer alone,
And where words are the thing,
And the thing is presented,
In a closeness, in a tightness, in this space you’ve invented,
In the vein of Kafka’s breakfast,
Burrough’s Lunch, a trip with Cassedy,
Or Ginsburg’s debut, or a drink with Bukowsky,
“I saw the best minds of my generation
destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,”
And right off with the seating you decide to make it,
Even tighter by seating crosswise ’cross the site,
And letting the seats and trays fight,
For space and elbow room and jostling position,
And you set off to draw this
quickened condition,»