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

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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
maybe nobody recognised, but it was there. And I think that's true of everything I'vedone.LK: Well look, the regional theatres are non-commercial ventures, and they have tosucceed. It's an attitude, an aesthetic attitude, which was a gift given to us by Judsonchurch. The Becks really needed to have some kind of success to keep the theatregoing, even if it was a success de scandale. And of course they ended a period thenstarted a whole new period, but if you build a theatre that pays salaries and thingsthen you have to have some kind of success, in order to pay them. At the high point ofJudson, the church was sort of advancing, over the whole season, would advanceabout $10,000 for all the productions, and we would collect in nickels, dimes andquarters about ten thousand over the year, sometimes more sometimes less. As far asI'm aware, during the main part of the Judson Poets' Theatre it sort of balanced out,and then at the end they started getting little grants here and there. So to makemoney ... I never had any money, but I was there ... that was just the way it was ... Itwas something that moved me very much, and Al was very insistent upon it. One ofthe greatest things he did as minister in charge of the arts was that he really hadallowed himself to fail. And it came to a point where he would try to fail. He'd saywe're gonna do something so personal, and so beautiful that -- OK let it fail! Now ifyou really go into it when that happens, if you really let it fail, usually you're likely tohave a big hit! Every once in a while when you really try to be successful, let's saywith Rosalyn Drexler's wonderful play The Line of Least Existence, we really werehoping to be successful with that. There was even an Off-Broadway producer in at thebeginning hoping he could move it. And that was a big mistake. We realised - all ofus realised - that we had our hopes up wanting to ... and we lost it.SJB: So there was this kind of tension between a certain 'inspired amateurism' and aneye on the professional stage ...?LK: That word was used a lot and I always resented it. I'll tell you why, because wewere verbal in our attacks upon, quotes, professionalism. So they perceived that wewere in quotes amateurs. But the finest compliment I ever got was from PaulGoodman. I did a play of his in Hoboken, in a loft, and he came from NY to see it, theBecks came to see it. This was when I was really wanting to do my own work and notassist. And after the pieces were done, these two plays of Paul Goodman, Paul put hisarm on my shoulder and said 'Larry - it wasn't professional, it wasn't amateur, it wasartistic'. And that statement I repeated again and again ... my goal is to be artistic.Whether it's professional or non-professional, amateur or non-amateur, that reallydoesn't matter: I know I'm skilful, to an extraordinary degree, so obviously I'm aprofessional, but when I'm teaching people who are going out into the profession,saying oh I must have professional skills Professionalism now is a matter of whatshoes you wear, whether they're Guccis or You get what I'm talking about?
Page 6 and 7: -- from song to song in one play: w
Page 8 and 9: The church's mission was very spiri
Page 10 and 11: LK: Yeah. I was always very fond of
Page 12 and 13: of the truck driver, who's the chor
Page 14 and 15: young playwrights, poets, who had a
Page 16 and 17: LK: The theatre was originally form
Page 18 and 19: SJB: Michael Smith said somewhere t
Page 22 and 23: SJB: Yes. But was there a tension,
Page 24 and 25: happened with the best of Off-Off-B
Page 26 and 27: So they really retained the quality
Page 28 and 29: SJB: Irene was saying how you shoul

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

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