Ridiculous!: The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam [Hardcover]

David Kaufman (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1557835888 | ISBN-13: 978-1557835888 | Publication Date: October 1, 2002 | Edition: 1ST

From his first unscripted appearance on an Off-Broadway stage in the revolutionary 1960s to the frontpage news of his death from AIDS in 1987 at age 44, Charles Ludlam embodied - and helped to engender - the upheavals of his time. The astonishing life and legacy of this force to be reckoned with are at last revealed in RIDICULOUS!, a literary biography of an American comic genius. After founding the Ridiculous Theatrical Company in 1967, Ludlam sustained an ever-shifting troupe of bohemian players through two decades of perennially daunting circumstances by writing 29 plays - plays that he starred in and directed as well. While Ludlam's work has become increasingly popular at regional theatres, on college campuses, and on stages throughout the world, his gender-bending theories and wide-ranging cultural impact have reached far beyond Bette Midler, the original cast members of Saturday Night Live and the countless other artists he influenced during his abbreviated lifetime. Like his early plays, Ludlam's life was rife with the sex, drugs and creative experimentation that characterized the freewheeling '60s and '70s. Based on a decade of research and interviews with more than 150 people who knew or worked with Ludlam - including all of the major players in his troupe and seven of his lovers - RIDICULOUS! recreates the dramatic life of an inimitable and subversive theatrical master with you-are-there intensity. Winner of the LAMBDA Literary Award for Biography and the Theatre Library Association Award for Outstanding Theatre Book of the Year "David Kaufman makes a persuasive case for Ludlam's being a genius ... As a record of Ludlam's life and the theatrical world in which he was both guru and grandmaster, this book is informed and passionate." - Mel Gussow, The New York Times "A fascinating portrait of an authentic stage genius and the New York avant-garde scene in which he toiled with such demented and dedicated diligence." - Playbill "The phenom who inspired everyone from Bette Midler and Madeline Kahn to Tony Kushner and Paul Rudnick was no box of chocolates - which, as reading experiences go, makes his story all the sweeter." - Vanity Fair "This is one helluva piece of work." - Marilyn Stasio, Variety.com

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Founder of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company and winner of theater awards and accolades, playwright/actor/director Ludlam epitomized off-Broadway theater with all its edginess, verve and camp. Ludlam, who died from AIDS in 1987 at age 44, founded his company at 23, was profiled in the New Yorker at 33 and wrote scores of plays before his death. The acting pioneer careened like a juggernaut through the theater world, invoking adoration, acclaim and ire. Openly gay before it was acceptable, Ludlam remained a contradiction: his plays addressed sexual taboos, and Ludlam himself often acted in drag; yet while touring in San Francisco, his dismissive comments about the gay community raised protests, and he kept his illness secret until his death. With devotion, depth and dishiness, critic Kaufman has turned a 1989 Interview article into a decade-long love affair with his subject. The resultant chronology of Ludlam's life from humble Long Island birth to premature death reads like backstage gossip. Fanatically detailed-with over 150 interviews with Ludlam's friends, family, lovers and colleagues; excerpts from his plays, letters and journals; and commentary from critics-the book portrays not merely the man but his era, explicating Ludlam as more than a product of the 1960s' revolutionary sexuality, politics and art: a shaper of attitudes and ideas sexual, theatrical and artistic. Kaufman's assiduously researched work is at times heavy going, but will surely hold theatergoers' interest. Photos.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In 1967, Ludlam founded the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, famous for its over-the-top productions filled with gender-bending roles, sex, and drug use. Drawing on more than ten years of research (including interviews with Ridiculous stalwarts and Ludlam's cohorts and ex-lovers), Kaufman, a veteran New York theater journalist, describes this influential playwright and actor's flamboyant life and work in riveting fashion. Ludlam's odd, strict, Catholic household and childhood, the creation and success of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, and his death from AIDS in 1987 are all well rendered. Some of the best portions feature engrossing letters that Ludlam wrote to intimates, balanced by their own comments about him. Kaufman's book complements several other existing works on Ludlam and his company, including Rick Roemer's Charles Ludlam and the Ridiculous Theatrical Company: Critical Analyses of 29 Plays and Ludlam and Steven Samuels's Ridiculous Theatre: Scourge of Human Folly; The Essays and Opinions of Charles Ludlam. Highly recommended for theater and communications libraries.
David M. Lisa, Wayne P.L., NJ
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 450 pages
• Publisher: Applause Books; 1ST edition (October 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1557835888
• ISBN-13: 978-1557835888
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,878,480 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Thorough and Moving Account, June 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Ridiculous!: The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam (Hardcover)

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Ludlam's life. The author does a terrific job explaining the origins of both Ludlam's talent and his powerful (and often exasperating) personality. Of course, the book can't be as much fun as the shows were, but it is nonetheless an exciting and full account of one of the true originals of our theatrical times. I do agree with the reviewer who says that a postscript about the Ridiculous post-Ludlam would have been nice, but the book still deserves the highest praise for capturing a tricky subject so clearly.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Art Imitates Life, February 18, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Ridiculous!: The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam (Hardcover)

Reading this book reminded me of sitting in the cramped Sheridan Square theatre watching Ludlam and his cronies perform--sometimes the performances were magical, but just as often I was more frustrated than excited by the all-too evident rough edges. There are problems with this book that should have been addressed by the editor, just as a more objective director could have improved some of those ridiculous Ridiculous evenings.

The design, which eschews traditional punctutation such as indented paragraphs, is difficult and unpleasant to read, because it doesn't allow the narrtive to flow. Much of the writing is repetitous, as Ludlam's passive-agressive directing technique is detailed again and again for each show.

But the biggest flaw is a lack of an epilogue to update the lives of the book's vivid "supporting cast" (Black-Eyed Susan, Lola Pashalinski, Bill Vehr, the late Christopher Scott, and most important, Everett Quinton, who became an icon of the off-off-Broadway movement himself with his later perfomances in Irma Vep and Camille. Are they still performing or are they out of the business? (P.S. Pashalinski was just in a theatre piece about the changing lives of actresses.) I know that the book is about the life of Ludlam and not the ridiculous theatre movement in general, but this reader felt cheated by the amount of time spent getting to know Ludlam's actors in print, only to have them disappear at the book's final scene, the memorial performance.

Also needed is information about about the few shows that the Ridiculous produced after Ludlam. It would be fascinating to know just how many performances of Irma Vep (one of the most wonderful nights in New York theatre this show biz addict ever experienced) are given today, or if Ludlam's Die Fledermaus is still in the rep at Santa Fe or elsewhere. These are big questions, because Ludlam has been dead for fifteen years, and his light is dimming, in spite of his influence on Tony Kushner (and who is performing his epic Angels in America lately, much less Ludlam's Turds in Hell?) and Charles Busch (who had his biggest success in years as the author of a mainstream comedy where he didn't even perform, much less wear fish nets).

And finally, like many biographies, you end up wondering why someone didn't haul off and smack Ludlam--he's that exasperating, and ultimately, not the kind of person you want to may want to spend a lot of time with. But in spite of the book's flaws, I am grateful to Kaufman for catching the excitement of Ludlam's life and times.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Letter, Not the Spirit, February 22, 2003

By 

John (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ridiculous!: The Theatrical Life and Times of Charles Ludlam (Hardcover)

A disappointment. Kaufman gets the facts, but misses the spirit. To be sure, any biographer of Ludlam is up against a lot. The main problem is that a lot of the man's art existed "at the vanishing point," that is to say, in performance. Ludlam was above all, an inspired actor, and acting (HIS acting) and style took precedence over everything (he gave the world no great plays, and his company consisted of weak, noncompetive actors). Capturing a performance in words is very difficult, and Kaufman has no aptitude for it. Further,he is too much the fan. Though he acknowledges all of CL's personal and professional faults, his admiration always guides the direction of the book and we never quite get the man whole, or any explanation of why we should admire him. The most one can say is that Kaufman has gathered the information necessary for others to assess Ludlam's quality and his contribution to theatre.