Authors: Gerald Rabkin, Gerald Rabkin
ISBN-13: 9781555540715, ISBN-10: 1555540716
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
Date Published: April 2005
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Gerald Rabkin served as theater editor and principal critic for the SoHo Weekly News from 1976 to 1980 and has written for such publications as the London New Statesman, the Kansas City Star, Theatre Journal, and American Theatre. He has served as contributing editor for Performing Arts Journal since its inception. Richard Foreman founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in 1968. The theater is currently in the historic St. Marks Church, where he rehearses and produces one of his new plays each year, each play performing for 16 weeks every winter.
The first critical edition devoted to Foreman's work.
These latest entries in the recent series from the editors of Performing Arts Journal shed light on two very different practioners of avant-garde theater. Foreman is in some ways the elder statesman of nonnarrative experimental theater, having produced his own plays continually for 30 years. While he often cites Brecht and Gertrude Stein as primary influences, his highly entertaining plays have their own unique form and relate his own philosophical and psychological probings acted out on the stage. Also a complete theater artist who wrote, directed, and designed his plays, Abdoh--who died of AIDS in 1995 at age 32--worked for fewer than ten years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He received much attention for his angry, political work, which confronted such issues as race, class, and AIDS head on, but no other permanent record of his career exists. Rabkin, a Rutgers theater arts professor, and Mufson, a writer specializing in the theater, bring these disparate careers into focus through a wide variety of writings. After introductory essays (Rabkin's is particularly insightful), the editors present a wide selection of interviews, reviews, and analytic essays as well as a section of original texts (playscripts and/or theoretical writings) by the artists themselves. Although the bulk of the writing here has been previously published, the books gather scattered information and cohere to provide overviews that will be useful to experts and novices alike. Recommended for all academic libraries supporting any sort of theater or performance programs.--Douglas McClemont, New York Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
Acknowledgments | ||
Richard Foreman: An Introduction | 1 | |
I | Overviews | |
Kate Manheim as Foreman's Rhoda | 23 | |
Setting as Consciousness | 37 | |
Richard Foreman's Scenography | 50 | |
Celebrating the Fallen World | 56 | |
A Theatre of One's Own: The Mellowing of Richard Foreman | 60 | |
II | Reception | |
Arthur Sainer on Total Recall (1971) | 67 | |
Michael Smith on Evidence (1972) | 69 | |
Richard Schechner on Rhoda in Potatoland (1976) | 71 | |
Bonnie Marranca on Pandering to the Masses (1977) | 75 | |
Frank Rich on Penguin Touquet (1981) | 84 | |
Gerald Rabkin on Don Juan (1982) | 87 | |
Gordon Rogoff on The Cure (1986) | 91 | |
Erika Munk on Film Is Evil, Radio Is Good (1987) | 94 | |
Kenneth Bernard on Lava (1990) | 98 | |
Michael Feingold on Eddie Goes to Poetry City (1991) | 100 | |
Ben Brantley on My Head Was a Sledgehammer (1994) | 103 | |
Robert Gross on I've Got the Shakes (1995) | 106 | |
III | Dialogues | |
Writing and Performance: Interview with Richard Kostelanetz (1982) | 111 | |
Both Halves of Richard Foreman: The Playwright: Interview with David Savran (1987) | 118 | |
Both Halves of Richard Foreman: The Direction: Interview with Arthur Bartow (1987) | 125 | |
Off-Broadway's Most Inventive Directors Talk about Their Art: Discussion with Elizabeth LeCompte (1994) | 133 | |
IV | Writings | |
Ontological-Hysteric Manifesto (1972) | 145 | |
Program Note for Particle Theory (1973) | 158 | |
How to Write a Play (1976) | 160 | |
The Carrot and the Stick (1976) | 169 | |
Program Note for Blvd de Paris (I've Got the Shakes) (1977) | 178 | |
Director's Notes from Program for Don Juan (1982) | 179 | |
Ages of the Avant-Garde (1994) | 183 | |
Samuel II (1994) | 187 | |
My Head Was a Sledgehammer (1994) | 191 | |
Chronology | 237 | |
Select Bibliography | 241 |