LARRY KORNFELD INTERVIEW with Steve Bottoms, 9.95 - Judson ...

LK: Remy Charlip's work. Almost any play that Remy did was wonderful. RemyCharlip writes children's books, was a wonderful dancer in the Merce Cunninghamcompany, and was one of the directors at Judson. Almost every show he did waswonderful. he was a dancer, choreographer, director... in fact we worked together acouple of times, he would do choreography for me. We never got along too well, wewould fight, but I loved his work. ..LK: William Shakespeare. (ho ho) Irene certainly, Rosalyn, Joel Oppenheimer,George Dennison very much so, Paul Goodman, Terrence McNally. Gertrude Stein ofcourse. Rochelle Owens, Ronald Tavel, Charles Ludlam, they were all wonderful. Imean some were better than others, some wrote better plays, but they were veryexciting to deal with .... You see one of the basic out-front rules, not rules, one oftheout-front, basic items of the agenda at Judson was: It Doesn't Have to Be a Hit. EllenStewart had the same thing. We did enough plays ... there was one year I did sevenplays in one year, and that's half of the full programme - there were probably another5 or 6 done at Judson that year, and you couldn't expect each one to be perfect, oreven very good. But Al was looking for things that were: let's do it! It may not work,but let's do it! And some of the things when they came in, I mean Home Movies wasall over the place! And Al and I, and Rosalyn, the three of us got together and made itwonderful. Without ever making it traditional. We didn't say well this is what theyteach in Yale Drama school, we always said 'what's in this that needs to come out?'And we were delighted if it was something totally new and totally different. ... Oneof the things that helped, I think, looking back, was that I had a very strong classicalpart of me, I love all kinds of music, especially classical music ... I have that in me tobe - as Gertrude Stein said 'I had it in me' - to be expanding my past, the world's past.So that if I was doing a play of Rosalyn's, like Home Movies, I immediatelyconnected to the feeling of, quote, the carnival quality of it. It also reminded me ofthe Brecht style, so I started blending in... The actual technique of the piece, as I saidbefore, became - it had a white curtain, the musical comedy has [...? ..] but this wasmuch more Brechtian, although I did not follow the rules of Brecht. So that I thinkthat what I brought to the Off-Off-Broadway movement was a sense of freedom, butalso a structural sense. I enjoyed taking things that were absolutely structureless,never taming them, in fact letting them be as wild as possible, but in the actualtechnical work, movement sets lights, there was an element of real craft to it. Andpeople always said that about Judson, especially my pieces or Remy's pieces orJacques' pieces, those of us who felt the same, that the piece was well crafted. Andyet very often one of the wonderful things about Cino was that they were nevercrafted at all, they were filled with a wonderful sense of ... although of courseLanford Wilson's pieces that were done there were beautifully crafted ... And I thinkthat I bridged that. I still do. That's why the Becks jokingly called me the sane one,because I could be wild in a way, but there'd be a formal element in my work, that