Certainly it’s impossible to imagine itnreaching more of a vegetable state thannin Worstward Ho.nWell, oddly enough, 30 years afternKrapp’s Last Tape we’re still here—ornsome of us are, anyway—ditheringnand blathering (Beckett more than thenrest of us) and taking the aspirins thatnBeckett prescribed for us in his nownfamous letter to Alan Schneider.nDuring the run of JoAnne Akalaitis’ncontroversial version of Endgame atnRobert Brustein’s American RepertorynTheatre in the winter of 1984, I sentnBrustein a copy of my disparagingnreview of the Alvin Epstein produchonnwhich had opened in New York a fewnmonths earlier. Brustein responded inna letter, “Don’t you find a certainnaffirmation and exhilaration in a playwrightnwho courageously confronts thenawful?” If by “certain” Mr. Brusteinnmeant “perverted,” then perhaps therenis an “affirmation” in Beckett’s worknafter all. But with the subsequentnworks as testimony to Beckett’s diminuhvensensibility, any earlier shreds ofn”exhilaration” have been erased altogether.nFor D.H. Lawrence, an imagenof the “hare erect” alone in a field wasnthe supreme metaphor of perfect ordernin an otherwise chaotic world. FornVirginia Woolf, it was the recurring,nterrifying image of a fin on the crest ofna wave. For Beckett, only the absencenof the possibility can suffice.nDavid Kaufman is a theater critic innNew York City.nPOP CULTUREnDesire & Deathnby Gary S. VasilashnSid and Nancy; directed by AlexnCox; written by Alex Cox and AbbenWool; Samuel Goldwyn Company.nBack in the days before OPEC becamena notable force on American streetncorners, high school, for most of usngrowing up in Detroit, meant onenthing: a driver’s license. All we had tondo was spend 12 weeks with a shopninstructor, who was looking for a waynto pick up a few extra bucks, in anRambler Hornet, thoughtfully donatednby a dealer who never dreamed ofnRenault. Then, the magic would benours. Everything—from the drive-inntheaters (now turned into strip malls)nto the drive-in hamburger stands (nownfeaturing a kiddy playland and ferns)n—pointed toward the day when a setnof car keys would be in hand, even ifnthey were for a mother’s four-doornValiant. The car meant freedom, notnas in the wild anarchy of On the Road,nbut the freedom to be your own person,nto go somewhere, or even nowhere,naimlessly driving up and downnthe same streets.nThe driver’s ed instructors weren’tnquite as dense as we liked to think.nBefore receiving the certificates thatnbrought us very close to cruisingnWoodward Avenue or racing awaynfrom the lights on Telegraph Road, wenwere ushered into the school auditoriumnfor a film that achieved semi-cultnstatus: Mechanized Death. It’s andocumentary-style film that shows innunflinching detail the consequences ofnhurling 4,000-pound objects aroundnwith abandon. Blood, gore, screams,nmoans, death. Police officers shakentheir heads as they try to find meaningnin the mayhem. Only metal piecesnremain to be picked up. Twisted livesnsoak in the gasoline and oil.nThe class of ’72 was not withoutnthose who died at the wheel and thosenwho survived, with significant changes,ncritical road accidents. But thenlarger part, those of us who were morencautious as we sped through the night,nhave made it unscathed, influenced innlarger part, I suspect, by the sensesearingnimages of Mechanized Death.nScenes from that movie came backnto me as I watched Sid and Nancy, an”docu-drama” that details the relationshipnbetween Sid Vicious (born thenmore prosaic John Ritchie), onetimenmember of the Sex Pistols, and NancynSpungen, a heroin-addicted groupienfrom Huntington, PA. Both are uglynpeople, not merely in a physical sense,nthough there’s that, but in the wayntheir lives unfold day after day likendirty sheets in a flophouse. They drivenstraight for destruchon and doom, mohvatednonly by their lust for pleasurenand their sense of outsized selfimportance.nEven the nothing-sacred,nsaliva-stained Sex Pistols couldn’t containnthe maniacal energy of the two.nnnAlthough director Alex Cox, who cowrotenthe screenplay with Abbe Wool,ndoes his best to make the two charactersnseem more appealing than they nondoubt really were (the real Spungennwas sent to a mental institution at agen11, was a drug addict by 16, and had anstint as a New York City topless dancernon her resume; Vicious and the SexnPistols were known more for theirnspitting beer on the audience and gettingninto fights than for any musicalnability in more than a rudimentarynsense), the utter vulgarity of the pair isntoo much to overcome. They arenmonsters in leather.nEarly on, Nancy, played with angusty whining by Chloe Webb, introducesnSid to the dubious pleasures ofnsmack. This is not your conventionalnboy-meets-girl scenario. In one scenenNancy affixes a chain with a locknaround Sid’s neck. He asks where thenkey is. She replies, “What key?” Sid isnstuck with the chain. With Nancy.nAnd with the monkey on his back.nSid, portrayed by Cary Oldman, anRoyal Shakespeare-trained actor whonwill undoubtedly be seen in less seamynroles, dies throughout the tale, althoughnit is Nancy who bleeds to deathnin a cramped room in New York’snChelsea Hotel from a knife wound he’sninflicted. (Sid died two months afternNancy: a heroin overdose.) The police,npicking up the body and takingnaway Vicious, shake their heads inndisgust. The audience does the samenfor over an hour-and-a-halfnIn the years since gasoline has becomensomewhat dear, the automobilenhas never regained its status among thenyoung. Detroit automakers are nownreturning to an anemic version of then”muscle car,” though it is targeted atnthe upscale professionals, not the peoplenwho ached for the original Mustang,nGTO, or Duster. The replacementsnfor the car radio and the 8-tracknplayer are the music video and thenboom box. Youth now dreams of escapenthrough the life of a renegadenrocker, whether it be Quiet Riot ornsome less-known local group of badnboys or girls, Sid and Nancy shouldnbecome required viewing for them. Itnis Mechanized Death for a new generation.nGary Vasilash is senior editor of Productionnmagazine.nAPRIL 1987/51n