Charles Marowitz - The Marowitz Compendium

ibidem-Press, Stuttgart

Artists to my mind are the real architects of change and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.

—William S. Burroughs

THE SOUNDS OF MUSIC;

EARLY RECORDING ARTISTS - (World Audience, Inc.)

HOW TO STAGE A PLAY (Amadeus/Limelight)

THE OTHER CHEKHOV (Applause Boks)

ESSAYS ON THEATER (Drama/Denmark)

STAGE DUST (Scarecrow Press)

THE OTHER WAY (Applause Books)

ALARUMS & EXCURSIONS (Applause Books)

RECYCLING SHAKESPEARE (Macmillan)

DIRECTING THE ACTION (Applause Books)

BURNT BRIDGES (Hodder & Stoughton)

PROSPERO’S STAFF (Indiana Univ. Press)

POTBOILERS (Marion Boyars, Inc.)

CLEVER DICK (Dramatists Play Svc.)

SEX WARS (Marion Boyars, Inc.)

THE ACT OF BEING (Taplinger Press)

THE MAROWITZ SHAKESPEARE (Marion Boyars)

CONFESSIONS OF A (Eyre-Methuen)

COUNTERFEIT CRITIC

THE METHOD AS MEANS (Barrie & Rockliffe)

ROAR OF THE CANNON (Applause Books)

[Plays & Translations]

SILENT PARTNERS (Dramatists Play Svc.)

MURDERING MARLOWE (Dramatists Play Svc.)

QUACK (Dramatists Play Svc.)

BOULEVARD COMEDIES (Smith & Kraus)

STAGE FRIGHT (Dramatists Play Svc.)

BASHVILLE IN LOVE (Samuel French, Ltd.)

SHERLOCK’S LAST CASE (Dramatists Play Svc.)

CLEVER DICK (Dramatists Play Svc.)

WILDE WEST (Dramatists Play Svc.)

DISCIPLES (Dramatists Play Svc.)

HEDDA (Aschehoug, Norway.)

ARTAUD AT RODEZ (Marion Boyars, Inc.)

THE SHREW (Marion Boyars, Inc.)

MEASURE FOR MEASURE (Marion Boyars, Inc.)

AN OTHELLO (Penguin Books)

A MACBETH (Marion Boyars, inc.)

VARIATIONS ON THE (Marion Boyars, Inc.)

MERCHANT OF VENICE

THE CRITIC AS ARTIST (Hansom Books)

THE MAROWITZ HAMLET (Penguin Books)

& DOCTOR FAUSTUS

CYRANO DE BERGERAC (Smith & Kraus)

MAKBETT (Ionesco) (Grove Press)

AND THEY PUT HAND- (Grove Press)

CUFFS ON THE FLOWERS

(Arrabal)

Thelma Holt CBE

After a successful career as an actor, Thelma Holt, in partnership with Charles Marowitz, founded the Open Space Theatre in Tottenham Court Road, which became the forerunner of the London fringe. Later Thelma Holt joined the Royal National Theatre and was responsible for several acclaimed West End transfers. She was also responsible for major tours of RNT productions to Paris, Vienna, Zurich, North America, Moscow, Tbilisi, Tokyo, and Epidaurus. Thelma Holt produced multiple visits to the RNT in London by international theatre companies, including performances of The Hairy Ape by Eugene O’Neill, directed by Peter Stein (production from the Schaubühne, Berlin), Miss Julie by August Strindberg and Hamlet by William Shakespeare both directed by Ingmar Bergman (productions from the Royal Dramatic Theatre, Stockholm), Macbeth by Shakespeare and Medea by Euripides both directed by Yukio Ninagawa (the Ninagawa Company from Tokyo), Tango Varsoviano by Teatro del Sur (Buenos Aires), The Grapes of Wrath by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Chicago), and Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov by the Moscow Art Theatre. For the first international season Thelma Holt received the Olivier/Observer Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Theatre and a special award from Drama Magazine. Among a list of celebrated productions Holt was Producer for Hay Fever by Noel Coward, directed by Peter Hall, starring Judi Dench, produced at Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello, directed by Franco Zeffirelli at the RNT. Holt was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1994 and was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, (Golden Rays with Rosette) in 2004 by the Japanese government. She was awarded (with Bill Kenwright) the Tony Award for Best Revival in 1996 (A Doll’s House). Holt was Cameron Mackintosh Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Oxford University and has been a producer with the Royal Shakespeare Company since 2004.

Glenda Jackson CBE

Is an actor and former Member of Parliament (1992–2015). Jackson won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and was discovered by Charles Marowitz during the Theatre of Cruelty. In 1964 she had a breakthrough when she portrayed the French radical Charlotte Corday in the RSC/West End production of Marat/Sade. She reprised the role in the New York production in 1965, which marked her Broadway debut, and in the film version (1967). Jackson’s performance in 1970 in Ken Russell’s film Women in Love gained her the Academy Award (1971) for Best Actress. Jackson received Emmy Awards for her portrayals of Queen Elizabeth I, both in the BBC television miniseries Elizabeth R (1971) and in the film Mary, Queen of Scots (1971). She followed with a second-Best Actress Academy Award for A Touch of Class (1973). In 1992 Jackson left acting and won a seat in the House of Commons representing Hampstead and Highgate in North London. Known as an outspoken critic of the legacy of Margaret Thatcher, after leaving Parliament in 2015, Jackson resumed her acting career and in 2016 starred in a West End production of King Lear. Her performance earned Jackson her fourth Laurence Olivier Award nomination. Further acclaim including a Tony Award followed in 2018, when she appeared in the first Broadway staging of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. The next year she reprised her role as King Lear in the play’s Broadway staging. Jackson was named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1978.

David Weinberg, PhD

Is a theatre historian and theatre director. The Marowitz Compendium is Weinberg’s second book. He originally collaborated with Charles Marowitz in 1999 at the Malibu Stage Company in Los Angeles and continued to collaborate with him until his death in 2014. Weinberg has worked at West End theaters, including the Arts Theater, Leicester Square Theater, St. James Theater, Trafalgar Studios, and the Soho Theater, as well as Off-West End/regionally/internationally at the Young Vic Theater, Oxford Playhouse, Piper’s Opera House, Cockpit Theater, King’s Head Theater, Rose Playhouse, Theatro Technis, Baron’s Court Theater, Burton Taylor Studio, Etcetera Theater, Actors Lab Theater (Los Angeles), Hudson Theater (Los Angeles), RADA, and a festival hosted by the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon. In 2012 it was confirmed that he was the first American to direct at the historic Rose Theatre, Bankside, where the plays of Shakespeare and Marlowe were originally performed. He has taught theater studies at Kingston University London and the University of London.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Glenda Jackson CBE Foreword by Glenda Jackson CBE Charles and I first met when I auditioned for what, many months later, became the Theatre of Cruelty. He was always work oriented, a style very different to his style as a friend. But whatever his ‘style’, he was always honest, creative, rambunctious absolutely, open to ideas, hungry for innovation, cynical, caustic, fearless and a true, true friend and a true, true believer in the power of theatre, to transform, engage, question, involve, and discover. His was a transformative view of what a director can, perhaps even, should do. Never mis-lead, always lead, always explore, truth, truth, truth. He was deeply human, sensitive, intelligent, supportive or scathing if the situation warranted it. He was truly an explorer and I still feel privileged that I went on some of his journeys with him. He would close as many doors as he would open, but he never left you outside on the doorstep. I’ll never forget ‘Charles’, as I always called him, and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to work with him. Even more, he was a friend, much loved, much missed but never forgotten.