Hold the dinner

In a claustrophobic setting that looks like the Hitler Bunker as decorated by Gustav Klimt, three people sit around a table exuding contempt, self-loathing, treachery, and despair in elegant, well-rounded sentences. And nobody orders an appetizer, let alone dessert. Those expecting a second course of the sunny, funny My Dinner with Andre are going to be taken aback by The Designated Mourner, David Hare's film adaptation of Wallace Shawn's lacerating play.

"Whoops," says Shawn in mock concern. "Let's warn them. There's a huge difference in tone and also in the degree of imagination that's required on the part of the audience. The tone is much more depressed and kind of grim, brutal. And you have to use your brain a little bit to follow it. The difference is partly that the other movie was based on audio tapes of real conversations I had with another real person. This one comes completely out of my imagination. Also, at the time I wrote My Dinner with Andre, I was kind of hopeful. My view of the world now is much more grim. Things were just as bad then but I wasn't aware of it. I think it's just that I have changed and I'm more aware of the brutality of the world and the ruthlessness of the way people behave. That inevitably comes out in what I wrote."

What he wrote is a kind of Fahrenheit 451 meets No Exit. In an imaginary "small country with a big city" that has been taken over in a coup, Jack (Mike Nichols), an envious opportunist, Howard (David de Keyser), a snobby, revered poet, and Judy (Miranda Richardson), Jack's wife and Howard's daughter, reminisce about their experiences and actions during the upheaval. The title of the play is a phrase of Jack's referring to his role as an outsider self-appointed to mourn the death of culture.

But Shawn asserts that the message of the play and film is not that simplistic. "The death of culture is not a phrase that I would ever use. And culture itself is not a phrase I would tend to use. I don't know what that means. Different artistic works have different moral or political significance. The same work can have a dangerous side and a beneficial side. Wagner is a perfect example. It's unbelievably beautiful, profound -- and yet there is something in it that's disturbing. The Fascists who were inspired by it were not entirely misinterpreting it."

Suspicious of high culture, Shawn also is not above low culture. "I have a deep love of many elements of what would be called low culture -- not by me. That's where the great vitality of our country lies. One of the few things you can say in favor of the United States is that it has produced some wonderful popular culture."

Indeed, Shawn is probably most familiar to audiences for his contributions to popular culture. He's had an active career as a character actor, beginning with his appearance as the "homunculus" rival in Woody Allen's Manhattan and continuing with his role as the Grand Nagus on TV's Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

"I take it completely seriously. I pour my whole heart and soul into playing the Grand Nagus. In acting you have to get yourself together and do what you're going to do at a specific time. It requires a total commitment that's very different from the commitment of writing. With writing you can try anything because no one will ever see it, unless you want them to. With acting, a scene is going to be shot on Monday afternoon, and anything you don't do on Monday afternoon you won't be able to do. So it requires total concentration.

"If it weren't for acting, I would probably not get out of bed my entire life. I find it incredibly liberating to be out running around doing silly things, putting on a costume, chasing strange creatures, not to mention meeting all these people and socializing. It was a lifesaver. Absolutely."

-- Peter Keough