Judith Malina (1926–2015)

In their later years, I disliked Living Theatre productions. I found them assaultive, actually the opposite of the ideas they claimed to be embracing. (Many or most involved interactions with the audience and a declamatory acting style that came across as shrill and artificial.)

But this journal of Malina in her 20s as she and Julian Beck founded and grew the Living Theatre reveals another side. First, it reveals Judith's fierce intelligence and determination. Almost every page contains an idea or subject worth thinking about. Her associations included the foremost intellectuals and artists of 1950s New York—Merce Cunningham, James Agee, John Cage, Joseph Campbell, Dorothy Day, Paul Goodman, Jean Erdman, and more. She and Julian, when not working, attended myriad films and performances. She spent an entire day copying a manuscript of Orphee from the Columbia Library.

Before the sixties, her marriage was open, and her description of the men she loved is nuanced, passionate, revealing.

Two of the most fascinating passages describe her time in prison with Dorothea Day, in what is now the Jefferson Market Library. She received a sentence of 30 days for protesting the mandatory air raid drills in the city. Her prison time led to her conclusion that prisons shouldn't exist. I once heard her lecture with Julian on this subject at the 92nd St. Y in the 1980s and she was utterly convincing. Now, I think, I favor the Norway model.

This is a woman, however, who is male-oriented, who came from some privilege, whose companions and friends were mostly men, and who evinces not the faintest inkling of feminism. But, we are talking about the 1950s, before second wave feminism.

In summary, a book well worth reading. I think it should get more attention.… (plus d'informations)