Ondine

Ondine, also known as Robert Olivo, enters this account as a performer and teacher whose work continues on the road. Reported by Paul Morrissey, his travels with a 16mm print of Chelsea Girls give the film a precarious afterlife: it is still being screened and discussed, but its circulation depends on a single print that might disintegrate or go missing.

Identity and Introduction

The diary does not present Ondine directly; Paul Morrissey reports having seen him, and the account reaches the reader through that brief exchange. Its focus is less on biography than on what Ondine is doing now: carrying a film across the country, showing it, lecturing about it, and teaching acting. The name Robert Olivo identifies the person behind the stage name, while this passage itself keeps attention on Ondine as a recognizable presence and a model of performance.

Touring and Teaching

Ondine travels with a 16mm print of Chelsea Girls, screening it and giving lectures wherever he goes. The arrangement joins the film to his own continued activity: the print is not simply preserved but repeatedly put to use before audiences. The diary imagines the material limit of that work in the possibility that the print could deteriorate or be lost, making Ondine’s traveling practice dependent on an object with a finite life.

He is also teaching acting to wealthy students at a school like Buckley. The juxtaposition places his performance knowledge in a new setting, away from the traveling screenings and among students who might carry his manner into their own acting. The diary pictures a whole group of young performers beginning to act like Ondine, turning a teaching job into the possible extension of his influence.

The Fragile Afterlife of Performance

The passage’s central tension is between repetition and disappearance. Ondine keeps Chelsea Girls in circulation by carrying and screening it, yet the same repeated use threatens the print’s survival; loss or decay could end that particular chain of showings. His students offer another kind of continuation: not a copy of the film, but the possibility that his approach to acting will be reproduced by others. The diary leaves both futures open, presenting Ondine through the ongoing work itself rather than supplying a later outcome.