Richard Foreman

Richard Foreman (born Edward L. Friedman; June 10, 1937 – January 4, 2025) was an American avant-garde experimental playwright, director, and the founder of the Ontological-Hysteric Theater. Though highly original and singular, his work was influenced by Bertolt Brecht, Gertrude Stein, The Living Theatre, Surrealism and Dada. In the writing of his scripts the Dada cut-up technique was used.

Foreman often played the central godhead puppet master during his plays as he sat in the center of the audience in the director/engineer's seat from which he controlled the sound effects and other stage craft. He often spoke parts of the script in an omniscient voice through pre-recordings. Foreman has received the annual Literature Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a "Lifetime Achievement in the Theater" award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN American Center Master American Dramatist Award, a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2004 was elected an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.

Early life and education

Edward L. Friedman was born in New York City on June 10, 1937. He was adopted by Albert and Claire (née Levine) Foreman of Scarsdale, New York, who changed his name to Richard Foreman. Foreman was heavily involved in the theater department.

A 2018 documentary produced by the Lower East Side Biography Project outlined Foreman's early motivations for pursuing work in the theater. The documentary maintains that Foreman suffered from extreme shyness as a child; it also reveals his adoption.

Foreman went on to study at Brown University (B.A., 1959) and received an M.F.A. in playwriting from the Yale School of Drama in 1962. In 1993, Brown presented him with an honorary doctorate. At Yale, Foreman studied under John Gassner, the drama critic and former literary manager at The Theatre Guild.

Career

Early career and artistic influences

Richard Foreman moved to New York City directly after graduating from Yale School of Drama and worked as a manager of apartment complexes.

Foreman finally inserted himself into the avant-garde scene when police interrupted a screening and seized a copy of the 1963 film, Flaming Creatures, and charged Jonas Mekas, Ken Jacobs, and Florence Karpf for violating New York's obscenity laws. Foreman called Mekas, offering his help, and over the following years, Foreman and Mekas became close friends and collaborators.

During the 1960s, Foreman also got to know theater director Robert Wilson, filmmaker and actor Jack Smith, and theater director and scholar Richard Schechner, all of whom encouraged Foreman to start producing his own work.

Influence of Gertrude Stein

A number of scholars have called attention to the parallels between the theories of Gertrude Stein and Richard Foreman's theatrical aesthetics. Foreman himself has spoken about the significance of her writings to his work. In 1969, Foreman declared, "Gertrude Stein obviously was doing all kinds of things we haven't event caught up to yet."

Kate Davy analyzes Stein's influence on Foreman in her article, Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theatre: The Influence of Gertrude Stein. The primary connection between the works of Stein and Foreman, she proposes, is the writers' conception of consciousness in writing. Stein preferred "entity writing" over "identity writing." According to Stein's model, "entity writing" is "the 'thing-in-itself' detached from time and association, while identity is the 'thing-in-relation,' time-bound, clinging in association."

Davy notes that like Stein, Foreman tends to avoid "'emotional traps' or the intentional manipulation of an audiences emotional responses by eliminating the 'lifelike' qualities of drama (clearly developing situation involving imaginary people in imaginary places), thereby creating a world into which the spectator has great difficulty projecting himself." Davy points out that "by eliminating internal punctuation in long complicated sentences," Stein's writing produces a similar effect for her readers who have to actively take part in discerning Stein's words. Among his observations, Kirby notes that although "Sophia" is a play without a plot, it produces its own kind of structure of "thematic webs of visual and verbal ideas and references."

Stage productions

Foreman's plays have been co-produced by The New York Shakespeare Festival, La Mama Theatre, The Wooster Group, Patrick Kennedy, the Festival d'Automne in Paris and the Vienna Festival. Foreman has collaborated (as librettist and stage director) with composer Stanley Silverman on eight music theater pieces produced by The Music Theater Group and The New York City Opera. He has also directed and designed many classical productions with major theaters around the world including, The Threepenny Opera, The Golem and plays by Václav Havel, Botho Strauss, and Suzan-Lori Parks for The New York Shakespeare Festival, Die Fledermaus at the Paris Opera, Don Giovanni at the Opéra de Lille, Philip Glass's Fall of the House of Usher at the American Repertory Theater and The Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Woyzeck at Hartford Stage Company, Molière's Don Juan at the Guthrie Theater and The New York Shakespeare Festival, Kathy Acker's Birth of the Poet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the RO theater in Rotterdam, Gertrude Stein's Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights at the Autumn Festivals in Berlin and Paris.

In 2024, The Wooster Group staged a new interpretation, with Foreman's permission, of Symphony of Rats. Since 2014, British director Patrick Kennedy has staged a number of Foreman works, including a 2019 season of 3 plays at New Wimbledon Theatre. Kennedy's most recent adaptation of Foreman was at New Theatre in Sydney in 2024 with Sophia=(Wisdom) Part 3: The Cliffs.

Scripts

Seven collections of Foreman's plays have been published. Books studying his scripts and plays have been published in English, French, and German.

Personal life and death

In 1961, Foreman married Amy Taubin; they divorced in 1972.

Major works

Plays

Angelface, New York City (1968)
Ida-Eyed, New York City (1969)
Total Recall, New York City (1970)
HcOhTiEnLa (or) Hotel China, New York City (1971)
Dream Tantras for Western Massachusetts, Lennox, Massachusetts (1971) (music by Stanley Silverman)
Evidence, New York City (1972)
Sophia= (Wisdom) Part 3: The Cliffs, New York City (1972)
Particle Theory, New York City (1973)
Classical Therapy or A Week under the Influence ... , Paris (1973)
Pain(t), New York City (1974)
Vertical Mobility, New York City (1974)
Pandering to the Masses: A Misrepresentation, New York City (1975)
Rhoda in Potatoland (Her Fall-Starts), New York City (1975)
Livre des Splendeurs: Part One, Paris (1976)
Book of Splendors: Part Two (Book of Levers) Action at a Distance, New York City (1977)
Blvd. de Paris (I've Got the Shakes), New York City (1977)
Madness and Tranquility (My Head Was a Sledgehammer), New York City (1979)
Place + Target, Rome (1980)
Penguin Touquet, New York City (1981)
Café Amérique, Paris (1981)
Egyptology, New York City (1983)
La Robe de Chambre de Georges Bataille, Paris (1983)
Miss Universal Happiness, New York City (1985)
The Cure, New York City (1986)
Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good, New York City (1987)
Symphony of Rats, New York City (1987)
Love and Science, Stockholm (1988)
What Did He See? New York City (1988)
Lava, New York City (1989)
Eddie Goes to Poetry City: Part One, Seattle (1990)
Eddie Goes to Poetry City: Part Two, New York City (1991)
The Mind King, New York City (1992)
Samuel's Major Problems, New York City (1993)
My Head Was a Sledgehammer, New York City (1994)
I've Got the Shakes, New York City (1995)
The Universe, New York City (1995)
Permanent Brain Damage, New York City (1996) (toured to London)
Pearls for Pigs, Hartford, Connecticut (1997) (toured to Montreal, Paris, Rome, Los Angeles, and New York City)
Benita Canova, New York City (1997)
Paradise Hotel (Hotel Fuck), New York City (1998) (toured to Paris, Copenhagen, Salzburg and Berlin)
Bad Boy Nietzsche, New York City (2000) (toured to Brussels, Berlin and Tokyo)
Now That Communism Is Dead, My Life Feels Empty, New York City (2001) (toured to Vienna and the Netherlands)
Maria Del Bosco, New York City (2002) (toured to Singapore)
Panic! (How to Be Happy!), New York City (2003) (toured to Zurich and Vienna)
King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe!, New York City (2004)
The Gods Are Pounding My Head! AKA Lumberjack Messiah, New York City (2005)
ZOMBOID! (Film/Performance Project #1), New York City (2006)
WAKE UP MR. SLEEPY! YOUR UNCONSCIOUS MIND IS DEAD!, New York City (2007)
DEEP TRANCE BEHAVIOR IN POTATOLAND (A RICHARD FOREMAN THEATER MACHINE), New York City (2008)
IDIOT SAVANT, New York City (2009)
OLD-FASHIONED PROSTITUTES (A TRUE ROMANCE), New York City (2013)
Suppose Beautiful Madeline Harvey, New York City (2024)

Opera

Elephant Steps, Tanglewood (1968) / New York City (1970) (music by Stanley Silverman)
Dr. Selavy's Magic Theater, New York City (1972) (music by Stanley Silverman)
Hotel for Criminals, New York City (1974) (music by Stanley Silverman)
American Imagination, New York City (1978) (music by Stanley Silverman)
Madame Adare, New York City (1980) (music by Stanley Silverman)
Africanus Instructus, New York City (1986) (music by Stanley Silverman)
Love & Science, New York City (1990) (music by Stanley Silverman)
WHAT TO WEAR, Los Angeles (2006 (music by Michael Gordon)
ASTRONOME: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA, New York City (2009) (music by John Zorn)

Film and video

Out of the Body Travel, video play (1975)
City Archives, video play (1977)
Strong Medicine, feature film (1978)
Radio Rick in Heaven and Radio Richard in Hell, film (1987)
Total Rain, video play (1990)
Once Every Day, feature film (2012)
Now You See It Now You Don't, feature film (2017)
Mad Love, feature film (2018)

Books

Plays and Manifestos (1976)
Theatre of Images (1977)
Reverberation Machines: The Later Plays and Essays (1986)
Love and Science: Selected Librettos by Richard Foreman (1991)
Unbalancing Acts: Foundations for a Theater (1993)
My Head Was a Sledgehammer: Six Plays (1995)
No-body: A Novel in Parts (1996)
Paradise Hotel and Other Plays (2001)
Richard Foreman (Art + Performance) (2005)
Bad Boy Nietzsche! and Other Plays (2005)
Manifestos and Essays (2010)
Plays with Films (New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2013)
Plays for the Public (Theatre Communications Group, 2019)

Awards and honors

Foreman won seven Village Voice Obie Awards, including three for "Best Play", and one for Lifetime Achievement. In addition, he received:

1972 – Guggenheim Fellowship for Playwriting
1974 – Rockefeller Foundation Playwrights Grant
1990 – Ford Foundation play development grant for Eddie Goes to Poetry City
1990 – National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Distinguished Artist Fellowship for Lifetime Achievement in Theater
1992 – American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Literature
1992 & 1995 – NEA Playwriting Fellowship
1995-2000 – MacArthur Fellowship
1996 – Edwin Booth Award for Theatrical Achievement
2001 – PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award Master American Playwright Award
2004 – Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France

References

Notes

External links

Official website
The Fales Library Guide to the Richard Foreman Papers
The Bridge Project
Foreman's EPC author page
More Hysteria Please! A conversation with Josefina Ayerza Lacanian Ink 12
UBU: Strong Medicine stream
Richard Foreman on PennSound
Richard Foreman in the Video Data Bank
Don't Disappear Into A Dream - A Conversation with Richard Foreman
"In Dialogue: Snap Crackle Pop: Dancing in Richard Foreman's Brain" interview by Tommy Smith, The Brooklyn Rail, March 2007.
Richard Foreman papers, 1973-1987, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts