http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Living_Theatre_Extends_RED_NOIR_Through_227_20100125
January 25, 2010
Performances now through February 27 at The Living Theatre (21
Clinton Street) Wednesdays AND Thursdays are Pay What You Can
The legendary Living Theatre announces a four-week extension of its
newest work RED NOIR, written by acclaimed poet and experimental
author Anne Waldman and directed by Judith Malina, with performances
for the detective thriller based on film noir techniques and theme
set to continue through February 27 at The Living Theatre (21 Clinton
Street) in Manhattan. For the extension, admission to performances on
Wednesdays and Thursdays will be "Pay What You Can."
In RED NOIR, which opened December 10, writer Anne Waldman combines
metaphors of the film noir genre and reflections on modern life in
our economically and ecologically trouble ridden war culture. Set on
the Lower East Side, with an array of vivid characters whose lives
intertwine, the play follows a female detective as she investigates a
black market deal done by many greedy hands and pursues two men, each
carrying a valise - one filled with a nuclear or toxic substance; the
other filled with the seeds of the future.
Integrating Ms. Malina's direction and Ms. Waldman's vast and
accomplished literary catalogue, RED NOIR exposes lists of toxic
chemicals, reaches out to the Middle East, and expounds upon troubles
in our worldly existence in an attempt to find ways toward
revelation, revolution and redemption.
The ensemble cast of RED NOIR includes Camilla de Araujo, Brent
Barker, Vinie Burrows, Maylin Castro, Ben Cerf, Sheila Dabney, Jay
Dobkin, Luis Christian Dilorenzi, Erin Downhour, Eno Edet, Tjasa
Ferme, Ondina Frate, Gemma Forbes, Maria Guzman, Home Hynes, Silas
Inches Albert Lamont, Jenna Kirk, Celeste Moratti, Martin Munoz,
Lucie Pohl, Marie Pohl, Erik Rodriguez, Judi Rymer, Anthony Sisco,
Lori Summers, Enoch Wu, and Kennedy Yanko.
RED NOIR has lighting design by Richard Retta; set design by Judith
Malina, Ilion Troya and Richard Retta; and musical direction by
Sheila Dabney. Brad Burgess serves as assistant director.
Since the 1960s, Anne Waldman has been an active member of the
experimental poetry community as a writer, performer, collaborator,
professor, editor, scholar and cultural/political activist. She has
served as director of the Poetry Project at St. Mark's and
co-founded, with Allen Ginsberg and others, the Jack Kerouac School
of Disembodied Poetics, where she remains a Distinguished Professor
of Poetics and the Director of Naropa Institute's famed Summer Writing Program.
She has published more than forty books of poetry, including "Kill or
Cure," "Marriage: A Sentence," "Structure of the World Compared to a
Bubble," "Fast Speaking Woman" and epic "Iovis" trilogy. Her work has
been widely anthologized, and her poems translated into French,
Italian, German, Turkish, Spanish and Chinese. Ms.Waldman is also the
editor of several volumes relating to modern, postmodern, and
contemporary poetry. Her extensive historical literary, art and tape
archive resides at the Hatcher Graduate Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Director Judith Malina was born in 1926 in Kiel, Germany. In 1947,
after studying acting and directing at the Dramatic Workshop at the
New School with Erwin Piscator, she and Julian Beck co-founded The
Living Theatre as an artistic challenge to the commercial theater,
producing nearly 100 production including THE CONNECTION, THE BRIG,
FRANKENSTEIN, ANTIGONE, PARADISE NOW, SEVEN MEDITATIONS ON POLITICAL
SADO-MASOCHISM, I AND I, and RESISTENZA. Her literary output includes
the plays PARADISE NOW, MYSTERIES AND SMALLER PIECES and THE LEGACY OF
CAIN; collections of her diaries including "The Diaries of Judith
Malina 1947-1957" and "The Enormous Despair"; and two books of
poetry, "Poems of a Wandering Jewess" and "Love and Politics." As an
actress, she has appeared in films including "Dog Day Afternoon," "China Girl,"
"The Addams Family," "Household Saints," "Enemies: A Love Story,"
"The Deli," and "Nothing Ever Happens"; and television series
including "ER," "Miami Vice," "The Street" and "The Sopranos."
In his New York Times review of the company's 2009 revival of THE
CONNECTION, Charles Isherwood called The Living Theatre "a fierce
fighter on the forward front of experimental theatre." The Living
Theatre's most recent work include Judith Malina and Hanon Reznikov's
EUREKA!, Judith Malina's MAUDIE AND JANE, and a revival of 1963 Obie
Award-winner THE BRIG which christened the company's present home at
21 Clinton Street in 2007.
The Living Theatre was co-founded in 1947 by current artistic
director Judith Malina and Julian Beck, who served as the company's
executive director until his death in 1985. For more than six
decades, the company has presented a unique body of work that has
influenced theatre the world over, staging nearly a hundred
productions, performed in nine languages in twenty-nine countries on
five continents.
In the 1950s, The Living Theatre was among the first theater
companies in the U.S. to produce the work of influential European
playwrights such as Bertolt Brecht and Jean Cocteau, as well as
modernist poets as T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein. Based in a variety
of small New York locations that were frequently closed due to
financial problems or conflicts with city authorities, they helped
originate Off-Broadway as a significant force in U.S. theatre. Their
work during this period shared some aspects of style and content with
beat generation writers. Also during this time, the American composer
Alan Hovhaness and John Cage worked closely with The Living Theatre,
composing music for its productions. In 1959, THE CONNECTION
attracted national attention for its harsh portrayal of drug
addiction and its equally harsh language.
The Living Theatre has toured extensively throughout the world, often
in non-traditional venues, such as streets and prisons. It has
greatly influenced other American experimental theatre companies,
notably The Open Theatre (founded by Living Theatre member Joseph
Chaikin) and Bread & Puppet Theatre. Its productions have won three
Obie Awards: THE CONNECTION (1959); THE BRIG (1963) and FRANKENSTEIN (1968).
Performances of Anne Waldman's RED NOIR run through February 27 at
The Living Theatre (21 Clinton Street). Performances are
Wednesdays-Saturdays at 8pm. Tickets are $20. Wednesdays and
Thursdays are Pay What You Can. For reservations call 212-352-3101 or visit
www.Theatermania.com.
For additional information, visit www.livingtheatre.org.
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