A bold, innovative, avant-garde figure in theatre who helped revolutionized the style of playwriting and acting in the 1950s and 1960s, actor/writer/producer/directer Julian Beck was certainly a odd-looking sort with his baleful, hollow eyes, stark and skullish features and near-bald dome capped by long fringes of stringy hair along the side. He ...
May 31, 1925, Washington Heights, New York City, New York, United States
Died
September 14, 1985, New York City, New York, United States
Place Of Birth
New York City, New York, USA
Height
5' 10½" (1.79 m)
Profession
Actor, Assistant Director, Miscellaneous Crew
Spouse
Judith Malina (m. 1948–1985)
Children
Isha Beck, Garrick Beck
Star Sign
Gemini
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Quote
1
We want to put music and truth in our underwear!
2
We want, in changing the world, to change ourselves.
3
LSD carried with it a certain messianic vision, a certain understanding of the meaning of freedom, of the meaning of the as yet unattainable but nevertheless to be obtained erotic fantasy, political fantasy, social fantasy--a sense of oneness, a sense of goodness, a marvelous return to the Garden of Eden morality...That's why we thought if you could put it into the water system, everybody would wake up and we would be able to realize the changes we were dreaming in terms of societal structures. People wouldn't be able to tolerate things as they were any longer. They'd realize that something is wrong out there, something is wrong inside me, something is too beautiful, too indescribable, too irresistible to put off any longer.
4
We were willing to experiment with anything that would set the mind free. We were practicing anarchists, and we were talking about freedom in whatever zones it could be acquired. If drug trips were a way of unbinding the mind, we were eager to experiment.
5
Rhythmically I have tried to capture the tempo of my time, its ecstasy, its hardness, its lyricism, its great variety. The songs are musical, and I took a seat with the rhythm, its fluctuations, and the way in which we make music, which reaches in each poem its own order: repetitions, choruses, instrumental changes, the deposition of the phrases.... Each poem, however, must produce its own music, because each poem must be free in itself. I tried to express through rhythm and language, in the flow of images, the freedom, at last, of the poetic voice. I write these poems all the time. At home, in the car, backstage, at cafés.... I am always writing this single poem. Since I was 15, And I intend to continue writing them for the rest of my life.
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Fact
1
In 2006, The Living Theatre signed a 10-year lease on the 3500 square foot basement of a new residential building under construction at 21 Clinton Street, between Houston and Stanton Streets on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The Clinton Street theater is the company's first permanent home since the closing of The Living Theatre on Third Street at Avenue C in 1993. The company moved into the completed space in early 2007 and opened in April 2007 with a production of "The Brig" by Kenneth H. Brown, first presented at The Living Theatre at 14th Street and Sixth Avenue in 1963. The re-staging, directed by Judith Malina won Obie Awards for Direction and Ensemble Performance.
2
Their best-known play, "Paradise Now," a semi-improvisational piece involving audience participation, was notorious for a scene in which actors recited a list of social taboos that included nudity, while themselves disrobing; this led to multiple arrests for indecent exposure.
3
Musician Alan Hovhaness worked closely with the Living Theatre, composing music for many of its productions.
4
After Beck's death, the Living Theater continued under the auspices of Malina and Hanon Reznikov, along with co-founder Malina.
5
Among his many awards were the Lola D'Annunzio in 1959, the Obie in 1960, the Grand Prix of the Theatre des Nations in 1961, the Brandeis University Creative Arts Award in 1961, and the New England Theatre Conference Award in 1962.
6
Beck was interred at Cedar Park Cemetery, in Emerson, New Jersey.
7
Beck and Malina were life partners in an open marriage, and he conducted a long-term affair with Ilion Troya, a male actor in the Living Theatre company.
8
Beck and Maline were indicted a dozen times on three continents for charges such as disorderly conduct, indecent exposure, possession of narcotics, and failing to participate in a civil defense drill.
9
The Living Theater moved out of New York in 1974 after the Internal Revenue Service shut it down when Beck failed to pay $23,000 in back taxes. After a sensational trial, in which Beck and Malina represented themselves, they were found guilty by a jury.
10
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981- 1985, pages 56-57. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.
11
The 30-strong Living Theater troupe was amongst the most bold and innovative of the theatrical avant-gard that revolutionized stage performance during the 1960s. In addition to nudity and directly accosting and challenging the audience, Living Theater performances included rituals of love, affirmation, nonviolence, and communality drawn from various mystical and contemporary sources, including Artaud and the cabala. Cast members also frequently, if not continuously, used narcotics and other drugs such as LSD, even during performances. Julian Beck and the other members of the Living Theater frequently tripped together and often performed while high on LSD.
12
Attended the Horace Mann school, whose other alumni include Jack Kerouac and William F. Buckley (who were older than Beck).
13
Was a major influence on poet-rock star Jim Morrison, who attended Living Theater productions.
14
In addition to being an actor, playwright, and theatrical impresario, Beck also was a poet and an abstract impressionist painter.
15
Led with spouse Judith Malina the avant-garde troupe, The Living Theatre, famed for productions of "The Brig," "Antigone," "Mysteries and Other Pieces," "Frankenstein" and "Paradise Now."
$10 Million
