My Dinner with André: A Screenplay: Analysis of Major Characters
"My Dinner with André" is a film that revolves around a conversation between two central characters, Wally and André, who reconnect over dinner after several years apart. Wally, portrayed by Wallace Shawn, is a 36-year-old playwright and actor from an affluent background in New York. He has transitioned from a passionate youth engrossed in art and music to a more skeptical adult focused on financial security. Initially reluctant to meet André, Wally's curiosity about his friend’s life experiences compels him to engage deeply in their dialogue.
André, played by André Gregory, is a former theater director who took a hiatus from the theatrical world to seek profound personal insights through travel and unconventional experiences. His journey has led him to various spiritual awakenings, which starkly contrast with Wally's materialistic comforts. While Wally prefers a life insulated from discomfort, André embraces the emotional weight of existence, viewing each moment as significant. Their conversation explores themes of reality, existentialism, and the human condition, highlighting their differing perspectives on life. The interactions between the two characters provide a rich exploration of personal philosophy and the complexity of human relationships.
My Dinner with André: A Screenplay: Analysis of Major Characters
Authors: André Gregory and Wallace Shawn
First published: 1981, screenplay; 1983, play
Genre: Screenplay
Locale: New York City
Plot: Play of ideas
Time: The late 1970's
Wally, played in the 1981 film by Wallace Shawn, who meets André Gregory for dinner after not communicating with him for several years. A thirty-six-year-old playwright and actor who grew up in wealthy circumstances on the Upper East Side of New York, he has lived in the city all of his life. As a youth, he was obsessed with art and music, but as an adult, he has become very concerned with money as well. Once a teacher of Latin, he has been living with Debby, his girlfriend, for some time. Wally has only reluctantly agreed to meet with André, because he is uncomfortable with the possibility that he may have to counsel his troubled acquaintance. Because he has an incurable interest in human foibles, he decides that finding out as much as possible about André will permit him to make the most of the evening. During the course of their conversation, however, he becomes more of a contributor than an interrogator, commenting on André's observations and offering some of his own. Compared with André, Wally is a nonmeditative skeptic who loves simple material comforts that insulate him from an abrasive world. He provides narration both before and after the dinner.
André Gregory, played by André Gregory, a man born on May 11, 1934. Highly acclaimed as the director of The Manhattan Project theatrical company, he “discovered” Wally and produced his play Our Late Night. Also well regarded as a devoted husband and father, he suddenly dropped out of the theater in the mid-1970's to travel around the world. Over the ensuing years, he experienced a number of epiphanies in diverse surroundings. With his friend, Polish theater director Jerzy Grotowski, he participated in theatrical improvisations in Poland, both in a forest and in the city of Warsaw, that led to personal catharses and a feeling that he had learned what it meant to be truly alive. Later, he worked on a production of The Little Prince with two actors and a Buddhist priest in the Sahara, experienced hallucinations on more than one occasion, and lived in Findhorn in Scotland, a community where people address their appliances by name and also converse with plants and insects. After participating in a mock live burial at Richard Avedon's property in Montauk, Long Island, he lost his interest in self-discovery rituals and began to contemplate a return to directing. Although he is fearful of death in general and cancer in particular, he disdains attitudes, including conventional career ambitions, that skirt such troubling matters. Unlike Wally, he feels that even the slightest comforts afforded by modern technology estrange people from reality. For André, every moment ought to be viewed as sacred and full of emotion. Not long before he meets Wally for dinner, a mutual friend sees him crying in response to Ingmar Bergman's Autumn Sonata.
A waiter, played by Jean Lenauer, who serves Wally and André their meal. His face shows that he is familiar with the woes of the world.
An intense young woman, a figure wearing braids and a headband who appears alongside André in a photograph taken in the forest in Poland. Polish but nicknamed with an Indian name, she works in a Russian restaurant in London around the time that Wally and André dine together.