Review by Booklist Review
In what might be called an "anti-memoir," the Andre of My Dinner With Andre asks some big questions about life, love, and art, and shares stories of his own life (he was born in Paris to Russian Jewish parents in 1934) in a style reminiscent of his namesake character in that celebrated film. Gregory's theater career spans more than half a century, and he has worked or collaborated with a variety of artists, including Wallace Shawn, Jerzy Grotowski, Helene Weigel, and Gregory Peck. He collaborated with Louis Malle (My Dinner With Andre, Vanya on 42nd Street), Jonathan Demme (A Master Builder), and Wallace Shawn on film versions of his work for the theater. As a director, actor, writer, teacher, and painter, Gregory has a lot to say, and he says it with style and no little substance. Readers fascinated by theater, film, and the creative process will want to pull up a chair, pour a glass of wine, and feast on the thoughts of one of the theater's great artists.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
When is a memoir not a memoir? For boundary-pushing theater director and My Dinner with Andre actor Gregory, the question is a sort of thesis, a musing on the tensions--between life and work, reality and falsehood, life and death--that consume avant-garde artists. Born into a dysfunctional family of wealthy Jewish émigrés fleeing Europe during the 1930s, Gregory recounts his early life as a spectacular swirl of tragedy and privilege, one that sets the stage for his later, almost comical searches for theatrical inspiration across countless borders of country, class, and culture. A mix of successes and failures leads to the discovery of Gregory's artistic niche: small theatrical productions, rehearsed over many years, private and ephemeral yet somehow still aimed at posterity. But this book is more than an account of Gregory's plays, roles, or foibles. Rather, it's an intimate conversation between Gregory and readers (made possible by theater historian London) that asks us to listen to the ideas behind the words and emerge more thoughtful for it. Precisely what one would hope from half of My Dinner with Andre. VERDICT This rare, beautiful book toes the line between life and work; a must for Andre fans and theater lovers. [Prepub Alert, 11/1/19.]--Robin Chin Roemer, Univ. of Washington Lib., Seattle
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Reminiscences by one of the pioneers of American avant-garde theater.Few artists' lives have been as colorful as that of Gregory. Born in Paris in 1934 to Russian Jewish parents, he lived a privileged life of "private clubs, private schools, debutante balls" once the family left wartime Europe for New York. They spent summers in a California house Thomas Mann rented to them, where they socialized with celebrities like Errol Flynn, with whom his mother had an affair. He discovered a passion for acting when he attended a New York private school "established to train repressed, polite, withdrawn little WASPs." Much of this book, co-written by London (An Ideal Theater: Founding Visions for a New American Art, 2013, etc.), is a series of vignettes, some more entertaining than others, about Gregory's artistic and spiritual journey: stage manager jobs at regional theaters, lessons at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio, pilgrimages to ashrams in India, and outrageous flourishes in the plays he directed, such as a production of Max Frisch's Firebugs that featured an actual fire engine onstage and scenes from Hiroshima projected onto a trampolinea gig that got him fired. The narrative is filled with anecdotes about such luminaries as fellow director Jerzy Grotowski, who had a profound influence on Gregory's work, and Gregory Peck, who "slugged" him during an argument during the filming of Tartuffe. The highlight for many readers will likely be details of his long collaboration"forty-five years and only one fight"with Wallace Shawn and the making of their art-house hit My Dinner With Andr. These sections chronicle the duo's struggles to make the picture, from Gregory's memorizing hundreds of pages of dialogue for "the longest speaking role in the history of film" to his wearing long johns during the shoot because they couldn't afford to heat the hotel where the restaurant scenes were staged.A witty trip through a unique life in the theater. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
