Charles Marowitz - The Marowitz Compendium

The Happening in Edinburgh is a clear example of performance as ideological transaction. It generated a performance crisis by rupturing the accepted rules and norms which govern the use of signs and conventions in performance. A Happening is seen from as many viewpoints as there are participants and witnesses. There is no common consent about its centres of interest or meaning. Its meaning is dynamically conditioned by contextuality and the spontaneous perceptions of those involved, who tend to respond to stimuli and incidents not specifically intended by the participants, stimuli and incidents often brought into meaning by reactions to prepared events thereby contributing to the potential for performance efficacy.

The majority led by a harried Ken Tynan, apoplectic with rage, deplored the disturbance…. Celebrated directors from Yugoslavia, India, Ireland, and Germany called it ‘nonsense’ and ‘child’s play’. Joan Littlewood immediately sprang to its defence, dismissing questions such as ‘What did it mean?’, ‘Was it Theatre?’, ‘Did it succeed?’ Alexander Trocchi spat the word ‘Dada’ in Tynan’s face and exclaimed that critics could not merely explain away new forces in art by bundling them into ready-made classifications. (Marowitz 1990: 62–63).

To summarise, Marowitz’s work revolved around utilising aesthetic and intellectual tools to upset the status quo. Marowitz agitated conventional theatre and this disruption had the effect of shaking things loose, calling various received notions into question, and generally turning accepted conventions on their head. What was taking place during this period was a loose constellation of activities whose objectives at times were very different but, although there was never a singular unifying premise or manifesto, there was a shared antipathy to the conformity and commercialism of mainstream society and mainstream theatre. What happened was the evolution of a theatre diametrically opposed to the conventions of drama as literature common in the West since the Renaissance. It was an approach that rejected the beliefs and expectations of traditional audiences, complemented experimental influences and radically altered both the aesthetic and organisational basis upon which performances are created. These cultural and ideological intersections in turn helped to shape the identity of the theatre during this period.

This chapter introduces Marowitz as artist and man and places him within the context of contemporaneous theatrical movements and changes in broader culture. This chapter provides a map of the compendium so that readers can more easily navigate each section. It also provides a brief description of methodology, and indicators of Marowitz’s influence on performance practices are identified and discussed.

Out of the Melting Pot, is Marowitz’s unfinished autobiography. It was his wish to have the memoir published however it is still highly disordered and in draft form due to his incapacity from Parkinson’s disease. Discussions continue at the time of this publication as regards to the entire document. The first excerpt Dumped in the Melting Pot is a personal account of Marowitz’s family and growing up in poverty on the Lower East Side of New York. The writing is raw and at times can become morose as Marowitz writes as though he is already dead. The exercise of writing a memoir is in part to come to terms with one’s own life of course. The second excerpt The Golden Year is the story of how Marowitz lost his virginity. It is included because it is emblematic of Marowitz’s humour as well as his philosophy of life. The third and fourth excerpts are Marowitz’s recollections of his work with Nobel Laureates Harold Pinter and Vaclav Havel. These excerpts help to establish for the reader a sense of the arc of Marowitz’s life from humble origins and will be of greatest general interest.

This is Marowitz’s production journal from he and Peter Brook’s groundbreaking RSC experimental Theatre of Cruelty season. This work subsequently gave birth to the legendary RSC production of Marat/Sade. In the main this happened by way of a sketch in the Theatre of Cruelty season, about Christine Keeler and Jackie Kennedy. The Theatre of Cruelty season and Marat/Sade were particularly important in representing an intersection between experimental theory and a new radicalism at the time. Marat/Sade by all accounts was an unforgettable production, was filmed, and remains a signal event in post-war British theatre. It changed the lives of many people who saw it, including future innovative artists such as Mike Leigh and David Hare.

This is Marowitz production journal from the British premiere of Pablo Picasso’s The Four Little Girls, which was a part of Picasso’s 90th birthday celebrations in 1971. Picasso knew Artaud in Paris. They travelled in the same circles of fellow artists and thinkers. Picasso contributed paintings for Artaud’s benefit when he was released from Rodez asylum after World War II. The production journal also delves into detailed practical considerations and gives the reader a genuine sense of what a moment in the life of the Open Space Theatre was like. The Four Little Girls, is dreamlike and the production was extremely innovative in its immersive design elements. Picasso was a non-playwright and the surrealist unconventional structure and nature of the play allowed a fair amount of space for Marowitz and his collaborators to construct a production that was itself an extremely ambitious and unique work of art.

This excerpt is from the unpublished book The Sherlock Log, about Marowitz’s experiences bringing his play Sherlock’s Last Case, to Broadway. Marowitz wrote the play under a pseudonym in England and directed three separate versions of it before it was optioned for a Broadway production by Frank Langella, who also played the title role, under the direction of A. J. Antoon. Picking up where the Conan Doyle stories end, the play centres on a supposed plot against Sherlock Holmes by the son of his late nemesis, Professor Moriarty. Holmes finds himself imprisoned, trapped not by young Moriarty but, to his shocked amazement by Dr Watson. It turns out Watson has long been bitterly resentful of his sidekick status and Holmes’ pomposity. After Holmes' death Watson comes into his own, or seems to, until several impostors turn up claiming to be the real Sherlock Holmes.

“I despise Hamlet. He is a slob, a talker, an analyser, a rationalizer. Like the parlour liberal or the paralysed intellectual, he can describe every facet of a problem, yet never pull his finger out.” Considering the play imprisoned by centuries of critical appreciation and grand acting, Marowitz has taken it bodily, broken it into pieces and reassembled it in a collage which, he hoped, makes its meaning real again. This is the original full-length version with the original 1968 introduction restored. Along with the play Sherlock’s Last Case (1984), and his book Recycling Shakespeare (1991), this is Marowitz’s most popular work and it is the prime example of his collage adaptations of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Buchner, Ibsen, and Strindberg. The Marowitz Hamlet is also indicative of the turbulent era in which it was created much like Shakespeare’s version.

Tea with Lady Bracknell, is a previously unpublished one woman show that Marowitz wrote for actress Hermione Baddeley. Hermione Baddeley (1906-1986), was effortlessly funny and authoritative and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Room at the Top (1959) and she portrayed Ellen the maid in the 1964 Walt Disney film Mary Poppins. In this play Lady Augusta Bracknell’s wisdom lies not only in her pessimistic yet advanced philosophy of life and marriage, but also in her mastery of language. Her words are loaded with sharp arrows that aim at her ultimate purpose, which is to test the suitability of those in her orbit. The play is reminiscent of the Stanislavski exercise whereby an actor is interviewed in-character and caries on a conversation and goes about their business. The iconic mandarin Lady Bracknell shares her hilarious subjective view of the world of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.