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In early 1962 Claes Oldenburg rented a store
front on East 2nd St. in New York where he presented ten
happenings at the Store which he called The Ray Gun Theater.
The main actors were Pat Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras and
myself; the rest of the cast consisted of friends and
would change from play to play. The space of the Store
was long and narrow. The actors would all be in place
along one wall with their props. The invited audience
gathered along the opposite wall. Typically there would
be about 40 people, all of whom knew or at least recognized
each other.
In 1962 I saw Claes and Pat almost every
day, and Claes asked me to appear in the first performance
of the Ray Gun series, "Store Days 1." He asked
me to buy an enormous overcoat and a jock strap. Claes's
collection of "costumes:" black stockings and black high
heel shoes completed Lette's outfit.
At one point in my scene, I removed the
overcoat and struck poses wearing only the jock strap.
It was a kitsch male/female scene between Lette and me,
but some of the interactions were volatile and frightening.
At the end, I grabbed her by her shoulders and let her
slide to the floor. I put her feet in a hangman's knot
at the end of a rope attached to a pulley in the window
frame above us, and I hoisted her up on the wall feet
first. She hung upside down. The lights went off.
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