Judith Malina 1926–2015
In Memory Judith Malina 1926–2015 Because We Are Crazy from Richard Schechner All perform their tragic play, There struts Hamlet, there is Lear, That’s Ophelia, that Cordelia; Yet they, should the last scene be there, The great stage curtain about to drop, If worthy their prominent part in the play, Do not break up their lines to weep. They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay; Gaiety transfiguring all that dread. — William Butler Yeats, “Lapis Lazuli” (1938) Fierce, yet compassionate; opinionated, yet happy to listen and engage; impassioned, yet imbued with reason; political, yet open to ideas not her own; sure of her ends, yet Talmudic in arguing the means to those ends; small of stature, yet grand in effect; regal, not haughty. Judith Malina! She cut through fogs of shillyshally. She knew — or gave the impression that she knew — where she came from, where she was, and where she was going. Judith lived a long, often difficult life in the (Living) theatre. She lived that life in partner- ship with Julian Beck, then with Hanon Reznikov and Julian, then after Julian’s death in 1985, with Hanon until his death in 2008. These were her closest work-and-love partners. But Judith was also — most ardently and totally — in loving symbiosis with the Living Theatre from (at least) her 21st birthday, 4 June 1947, when she wrote in her diary: “[...] the earliest plans for the Living Theatre, the most important work of my life, for which I am now preparing” (1984:1). Attacked, imprisoned, beleaguered, dismissed or savaged by (some) critics, artists, scholars, and journalists, Judith suffered.
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