Judith Malina
Encyclopedia
Judith Malina is an American
theater and film
actress, writer
, and director, who was one of the founders of The Living Theatre
.
Malina was born in Kiel
, Germany
, the daughter of Jewish parents: her mother, Rosel (née Zamora), was a former actress, and her father, Max Malina, a rabbi
in the Conservative
denomination. In 1929 at the age of three, she immigrated with her parents to New York City
. Her parents helped her see how important political theatre was, as her father was trying to warn people of the Nazi menace. Except for long tours, she has lived in New York ever since. Interested in acting from an early age, she began attending the New School for Social Research in 1945 to study theatre under Erwin Piscator
. Malina was greatly influenced by Piscator's philosophy of theatre, which was based on Bertolt Brecht
's principles of "epic theatre
" but went further in departing from traditional narrative forms. Piscator saw theatre as a form of political communication or agitprop
—Malina, unlike Piscator, was committed to nonviolence
and anarchism
.
, in 1943, when she was 17 and he was a student at Yale University
. Beck, originally a painter
, came to share her interest in political theatre. In 1947 the couple founded The Living Theatre
, which they directed together until Beck's death in 1985. Malina's and Beck's marriage was as unconventional as their work: Beck was bisexual
and had a male partner, and Malina was involved with a series of men. The couple had two children: a son Garrick and a daughter Isha.
. They received a five-year suspended sentence, and decided to leave the U.S. The company spent the next five years touring in Europe
and creating increasingly radical works, culminating in Paradise Now. They returned to the US in 1968 to present their new work. In her book The Enormous Despair (1972), part of her series of published diaries, Malina expressed the sense of danger and unfamiliarity she felt on returning to the U.S. in the midst of the social upheavals of the late 1960s.
In 1969 the company decided to divide into three groups. One worked on the pop scene in London, another went to India to study traditional Indian theatre arts, and the third, including Malina and Beck, traveled in 1971 to Brazil
to tour. They were imprisoned there on political charges for two months by the military government.
After Beck's death from cancer in 1985, company member Hanon Reznikov
, who had become Malina's lover (they married in 1988), assumed co-leadership of the company. In 2007 it opened its own theater in 2007 at 21 Clinton Street in Manhattan. In April 2008 Reznikov suffered a stroke, and while hospitalized, he died of pneumonia on May 3 at the age of 57.
Malina appeared occasionally in films, beginning in 1975, when she played Al Pacino
's mother in Dog Day Afternoon
. Other roles include in Pacino's Looking for Richard. She played Grandma Addams in The Addams Family
(1991), and had major roles in Household Saints
(1993) and the low-budget film, Nothing Really Happens (2003). She appeared in an episode of long-running TV series The Sopranos
in 2006.
Other awards include an honorary doctorate from Lehman College
, the Lola d’Annunzio award (1959); Page One Award (1960); Obie Award (1960, 1964, 1969, 1975, 1987, 1989, and 2007); Creative Arts Citation, Brandeis University (1961); Grand Prix du Théâtre des Nations (1961); Paris Critics Circle medallion (1961); Prix de L’Université de Paris (1961); New England Theater Conference Award (1962); Olympio Prize (1967); and a Guggenheim fellowship (1985).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
theater and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
actress, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, and director, who was one of the founders of The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group still existing in the U.S...
.
Early life
Malina was born in Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, the daughter of Jewish parents: her mother, Rosel (née Zamora), was a former actress, and her father, Max Malina, a rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
in the Conservative
Conservative Judaism
Conservative Judaism is a modern stream of Judaism that arose out of intellectual currents in Germany in the mid-19th century and took institutional form in the United States in the early 1900s.Conservative Judaism has its roots in the school of thought known as Positive-Historical Judaism,...
denomination. In 1929 at the age of three, she immigrated with her parents to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Her parents helped her see how important political theatre was, as her father was trying to warn people of the Nazi menace. Except for long tours, she has lived in New York ever since. Interested in acting from an early age, she began attending the New School for Social Research in 1945 to study theatre under Erwin Piscator
Erwin Piscator
Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator was a German theatre director and producer and, with Bertolt Brecht, the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience or on the production's formal...
. Malina was greatly influenced by Piscator's philosophy of theatre, which was based on Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
's principles of "epic theatre
Epic theatre
Epic theatre was a theatrical movement arising in the early to mid-20th century from the theories and practice of a number of theatre practitioners, including Erwin Piscator, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vsevolod Meyerhold and, most famously, Bertolt Brecht...
" but went further in departing from traditional narrative forms. Piscator saw theatre as a form of political communication or agitprop
Agitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
—Malina, unlike Piscator, was committed to nonviolence
Nonviolence
Nonviolence has two meanings. It can refer, first, to a general philosophy of abstention from violence because of moral or religious principle It can refer to the behaviour of people using nonviolent action Nonviolence has two (closely related) meanings. (1) It can refer, first, to a general...
and anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
.
Marriage and family
Malina met her long-time collaborator and husband, Julian BeckJulian Beck
Julian Beck was an American actor, director, poet, and painter.-Early life:Beck was born in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan in New York City, the son of Mabel Lucille , a teacher, and Irving Beck, a businessman. He briefly attended Yale University, but dropped out to pursue writing and...
, in 1943, when she was 17 and he was a student at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
. Beck, originally a painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, came to share her interest in political theatre. In 1947 the couple founded The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre
The Living Theatre is an American theatre company founded in 1947 and based in New York City. It is the oldest experimental theatre group still existing in the U.S...
, which they directed together until Beck's death in 1985. Malina's and Beck's marriage was as unconventional as their work: Beck was bisexual
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
and had a male partner, and Malina was involved with a series of men. The couple had two children: a son Garrick and a daughter Isha.
Career
In 1963 they had to close the Living Theatre because of IRS charges (later proved false) of tax problems, and Malina and Beck were convicted of contempt of courtContempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
. They received a five-year suspended sentence, and decided to leave the U.S. The company spent the next five years touring in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and creating increasingly radical works, culminating in Paradise Now. They returned to the US in 1968 to present their new work. In her book The Enormous Despair (1972), part of her series of published diaries, Malina expressed the sense of danger and unfamiliarity she felt on returning to the U.S. in the midst of the social upheavals of the late 1960s.
In 1969 the company decided to divide into three groups. One worked on the pop scene in London, another went to India to study traditional Indian theatre arts, and the third, including Malina and Beck, traveled in 1971 to Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
to tour. They were imprisoned there on political charges for two months by the military government.
After Beck's death from cancer in 1985, company member Hanon Reznikov
Hanon Reznikov
Hanon Reznikov was an American anarchist, theater and film actor, writer, and co-director of The Living Theatre in New York City following Julian Beck's death in 1985. He married Malina in 1988...
, who had become Malina's lover (they married in 1988), assumed co-leadership of the company. In 2007 it opened its own theater in 2007 at 21 Clinton Street in Manhattan. In April 2008 Reznikov suffered a stroke, and while hospitalized, he died of pneumonia on May 3 at the age of 57.
Malina appeared occasionally in films, beginning in 1975, when she played Al Pacino
Al Pacino
Alfredo James "Al" Pacino is an American film and stage actor and director. He is famous for playing mobsters, including Michael Corleone in The Godfather trilogy, Tony Montana in Scarface, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy and Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way, though he has also appeared...
's mother in Dog Day Afternoon
Dog Day Afternoon
Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 drama film directed by Sidney Lumet, written by Frank Pierson, and produced by Martin Bregman. The film stars Al Pacino, John Cazale, Charles Durning, Chris Sarandon, Penny Allen, James Broderick, and Carol Kane. The title refers to the "dog days of summer".The film was...
. Other roles include in Pacino's Looking for Richard. She played Grandma Addams in The Addams Family
The Addams Family (film)
The Addams Family is a 1991 American black comedy film based on the characters from the cartoon of the same name created by cartoonist Charles Addams....
(1991), and had major roles in Household Saints
Household Saints
Household Saints is a 1993 film starring Tracey Ullman, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Lili Taylor. It was based on the novel by Francine Prose and directed by Nancy Savoca. The film explores the lives of three generations of Italian-American women over the course of the latter-half of the 20th century...
(1993) and the low-budget film, Nothing Really Happens (2003). She appeared in an episode of long-running TV series The Sopranos
The Sopranos
The Sopranos is an American television drama series created by David Chase that revolves around the New Jersey-based Italian-American mobster Tony Soprano and the difficulties he faces as he tries to balance the often conflicting requirements of his home life and the criminal organization he heads...
in 2006.
Awards
- 2008, annual Artistic Achievement Award from the New York Innovative Theatre AwardsNew York Innovative Theatre AwardsThe New York Innovative Theatre Awards were founded in 2004. These annual awards honor excellence in Off-Off-Broadway Theatre and help nurture and promote the Off-Off-Broadway community.-Mission statement:...
. This honor was presented to Malina by Olympia DukakisOlympia DukakisOlympia Dukakis is an American actress. In 1987, she won an Academy Award, BAFTA, and a Golden Globe for her performance in Moonstruck...
on behalf of her peers and fellow artists of the Off-Off-BroadwayOff-Off-BroadwayOff-Off-Broadway theatrical productions in New York City are those in theatres that are smaller than Broadway and Off-Broadway theatres. Off-Off-Broadway theaters are often defined as theaters that have fewer than 100 seats, though the term can be used for any show in the New York City area that...
community "in recognition of her unabashed pioneering spirit and unyielding dedication to her craft and the Off-Off-Broadway community".
- 2009, the Edwin Booth Award from the Doctoral Theatre Students Association of the City University of New YorkCity University of New YorkThe City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...
.
Other awards include an honorary doctorate from Lehman College
Lehman College
Lehman College is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York, USA. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, the school became an independent college within the City University in 1968. The college is named after Herbert Lehman, a former New York governor,...
, the Lola d’Annunzio award (1959); Page One Award (1960); Obie Award (1960, 1964, 1969, 1975, 1987, 1989, and 2007); Creative Arts Citation, Brandeis University (1961); Grand Prix du Théâtre des Nations (1961); Paris Critics Circle medallion (1961); Prix de L’Université de Paris (1961); New England Theater Conference Award (1962); Olympio Prize (1967); and a Guggenheim fellowship (1985).
Credits
- Entretiens avec le Living Théâtre (with Julian Beck and Jean-Jaques Lebel) (1969)
- We, The Living Theatre (with Julian Beck and Aldo Lastagmo) (1970)
- Paradise Now (with Julian Beck) (1971)
- The Enormous Despair, Diaries 1968-89 (New York: Random House, 1972)
- Le Legs de Cain: trois projets pilotes (with Julian Beck) (1972)
- Frankenstein (Venice Version) (with Julian Beck) (1972)
- Sette meditazioni sul sadomachismo politico (with Julian Beck) (1977)
- Living Heist Leben Theater (with Imke Buchholz) (1978)
- Diary excerpts Brazil 1970, Diary of Bologna 1977 (1979)
- Poems of a Wandering Jewess (Paris: Handshake Editions, 1982)
- The Diaries of Judith Malina: 1947-1957 (New York: Grove Press, 1984)