The Living Theatre: Art, Exile, and Outrage [Paperback]

John Tytell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 1997

The most radical, uncompromising, and experimental group in American theatrical history, the Living Theatre was flamboyant and daring both onstage and off. It attracted attention worldwide, violated many of the taboos of culture and government, and unleashed a backlash of arrests, imprisonment, and attempts at suppression, all while presenting the work of some of the world’s preeminent artists, including Tennessee Williams, Frank O’Hara, James Agee, Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Merce Cunningham, and John Cage.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

America's longest-lived radical theater is the subject of this matter-of-fact history. Tytell, an English professor at Queens College in New York City, opens with the 1943 meeting of 17-year-old Judith Malina and 18-year-old Julian Beck in Manhattan, whose unconventional marriage and bohemian ideals shaped the Living Theatre from its beginnings in the early 1950s through its work today. They were drawn together despite his homosexuality and her many affairs: theater was their bond, and the 1958 production of Jack Gelber's The Connection catapulted the Living Theatre into the limelight. Drugs, communal living, the couple's commitment to anarchist/pacifist principles and the idea that there should be no separation between art and life fueled the works that made it the most controversial theater of the 1960s: Mysteries, Paradise Now and Frankenstein were frequently performed with the police in attendance; the Becks and their followers served several jail sentences in the United States and abroad on charges ranging from indecent exposure to incitement to riot. Drawing on Malina's diaries (Beck died in 1985) and the Living Theatre archives, Tytell (Naked Angels) provides a detailed chronicle that fails to illuminate the complex Malina-Beck relationship and says little about the contributions made by other company members, a serious omission in a book about a theater based on collective creation. Although Tytell presents the couple's ideas adequately, he offers no analysis that would help readers understand when the Living Theatre met its goals and when it failed.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The Living Theatre has been one of the most significant companies in the American avant-garde. Since 1947, it has mounted an unceasing assault on bourgeois theatrical values while at the same time attempting to establish a revolutionary, nonviolent theater following the ideas of Artaud. Many of the plays produced by The Living Theatre, such as Kenneth Brown's The Brig, employed outrageous improvisational techniques and voiced strong antiwar sentiments; early members of the company virtually invented the possibility of mass social protest in America. In the first history spanning the entire life of the company, Tytell (Ezra Pound, LJ 9/15/87) chronicles the lives of Living Theatre founders, husband and wife Julian Beck and Judith Malina. Tytell had access to the theater's archives and many of Malina's unpublished journals. He also conducted numerous interviews with major players involved with the group. The chronology, however, presents a rather indifferent and trivial treatment of the political motivations behind the group, dwelling instead on the more lurid aspects of counterculture sexuality and drug use. Nonetheless, this book nicely supplements The Diaries of Judith Malina: 1947-1957 (1983. o.p.) and Julian Beck's manifesto, The Life of the Theatre: The Relation of the Artist to the Struggle of the People (Limelight, 1986). Recommended for academic and larger public libraries.?Steven R. Harris, Lousiana State Univ., Baton Rouge
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 434 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (January 7, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802134866
• ISBN-13: 978-0802134868
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #757,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Living Theatre in A Whole!, November 8, 2000

By 

Chris Consorte - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Living Theatre: Art, Exile, and Outrage (Paperback)

I read this and I must say it's very thick. It's about the life of Julian Beck and The Living Theatre though the eyes of John Tytell. Although John tells the Biographical part of Beck's theatre, he doesn't go into too much detail about the actual performances. My guess would be is that you had to experience them for yourself. It's a very detailed about Beck's intentions, his view of theatre, and why he ripped away the conventions to bring the performers and their audience closer together. For those into theatre it is a must book to have.

4.0 out of 5 stars informative, February 26, 2006

By 

John S. Smolowe (Menlo Park, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Living Theatre: Art, Exile, and Outrage (Paperback)

i got this book cause i attended a living theater performance of paradise now at yale in 1968. reading a history of julian beck and judith malina took me back to those days. the struggle to find and mount their vision was intriguing. the number of now-famous artistic colleagues they hung out with - john cage, merce cunningham, truman capote, and many more - with makes this quite the book for name-droppers. the book is comprehensive and interesting, if a bit dry.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Loosely based on some possible stories, May 22, 2008

By 

Prometheus at the Winter Palace - See all my reviews

This review is from: Living Theatre (Biography and Autobiography) (Paperback)

This is a book loosely based on some of the things that people in The Living Theatre may have done until 1985. All but the last chapter trods already well-worn ground of the "crazy" Living Theatre, and says nearly nothing about the work itself. The Living Theatre has continued to work and grow up until the present day (2008), and nearly nothing is mentioned about what they have learned and created since the mid 1970s. For more scholarly treatments, consult some of the avant-garde studies of Shank, Aronson, or Innes. Or better yet, go see the current Living Theatre for yourself on Clinton Street in Manhattan.