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 Contemporary Theatre Review, 2013
Vol. 23, No. 2, 249264, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10486801.2013.792587

CTR BACKPAGES
Backpages 23.2
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Backpages is an opportunity for the academy to engage with theatre and performance practice with immediacy
and insight and for theatre workers and performance artists to engage critically and reectively on their work
and the work of their peers. Featuring short, topical articles and debates, polemics where necessary, its a place of
intellectual intervention and creative reection. Its also where we hope to articulate, perhaps for the rst time,
the work of new and rising theatre artists in an academic forum.

A New Crisis in New Writing?
Free Theatre Against Fear in Turkey
Colorblind? Racial Identity Onstage
On the Concept of Laughter: An Interview
with La Ribot
Remembering Anna Lizaran
In Memoriam: Howard Stein
v Nation, I came up with a ballpark gure of 3,000
A New Crisis in New Writing?
Aleks Sierz
Aleks Sierz is author of In-Yer-Face Theatre: British
Drama Today, co-editor of theatreVOICE website,
and works as a journalist, broadcaster and theatre
critic at large.
In the YouTube video of Read All About It a little
boy smashes up his step sisters bedroom and then
starts on his parents room, in a story about return-
ing sons and absent fathers, while Professor Green
raps I aint censoring myself for nobody/Im the
only thing I can be,/All that is good, all that is bad,
all that is, me, while Emeli Sand sings I wanna
sing, I wanna shout,/I wanna scream till the words
dry out. The video has a curious 1990s feel about
it, and suggests that maybe culture also repeats
itself, in an endless Groundhog Day routine.
So, after two years of Coalition government,
once again that old question has popped up: is
new writing for the British theatre in crisis? At rst
glance, the question is absurd and the answer is a
strenuous No. Surely, new plays are booming.
When I did research for my book, Rewriting the
new plays produced in the UK over the rst decade
of the new millennium. It seems that new writing is
everywhere, and everywhere it is attracting new
audiences. Yet, since 2010, there are reasons to be
less celebratory. For a start, the system of specialist
new writing theatres that has served British theatre
so well for decades is now being dismantled. Once
you could rely on the Royal Court, Bush,
Hampstead and Soho theatres in London to
develop new writing, while outside London, Live
Theatre in Newcastle and The Traverse in
Edinburgh were beacons.
Of these Big Six specialist theatres, half now have
a different agenda, following the arrival of new
artistic directors. At the Hampstead, Edward Hall
has widened the new play remit to include classical
revivals, lm adaptations, history plays and
Shakespeare (visits by his own Propeller Theatre
Company). At the Soho, Steve Marmion has
widened the original project of staging work by
new and rst-time writers to include revivals,

2013 Taylor & Francis

 250
cabaret, opera, sketch shows, comedy acts and a
highly successful stage version of Labour politician
Chris Mullins political memoirs. At the Bush,
under new artistic director Madani Younis the
focus has shifted from creating new plays to touring
them, and from developing playwriting to site-spe-
cic work. To be fair, Hall does promote new plays,
but they are mainly conned to his smaller studio
space, and this also happens at the Soho. Likewise,
Younis has already announced a project to create a
new studio space inside the Bush.
In fact, as the age of austerity becomes more
evident, new writing of a challenging and innova-
tive kind looks increasingly vulnerable. For Max
Stafford-Clarks Out of Joints company, 2012 is
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the rst year (for 18 years) in which it produced
two revivals of contemporary plays but no new
work. Stafford-Clark blames the squeeze on sub-
sidy. The message seems to be: get conservative,
or perish. In February 2012, playwright Simon
Stephens drew attention to the disappointing
audiences for his The Trial of Ubu, a radical
rethink of the Alfred Jarry classic in a
Hampstead Theatre production by Katie
Mitchell. He said, The dening plays of the last
three years are possibly Jerusalem, Enron and One
Man, Two Guvnors, all of which aim fundamen-
tally to entertain, to uplift, to inspire, to tickle.
Nowadays, only fun sells. Soon after, similar
points were made by David Hare, Mark
Ravenhill and Charlotte Keatley.
Interestingly, One Man, Two Guvnors won the
Evening Standard and the Critics Circle Awards for
Best New Play of 2011 when it is, strictly speaking
an adaptation (of Goldonis The Servant of Two
Masters) rather than a completely new play. Its
phenomenal success in the West End, along with
transfers of the Old Vics Noises Off, and a revival of
Nol Cowards Hay Fever, suggests a public appe-
tite for farce and comedy. Similarly, the arrival of
the stage adaptation of the Ealing comedy The
Ladykillers and Alan Ayckbourns Absent Friends
indicates that old comedies can be restaged for a
new generation. But as well as being comedies,
these plays also appeal to the great British publics
love of the past: One Man, Two Guvnors is set in the
1960s, Absent Friends in the 1970s and Noises Off
in the 1980s. Hay Fever is quintessentially 1920s.
The Ladykillers is very 1940s and the other popular
West End adaptation, War Horse, is set around the
First World War. At the same time, in early 2012,
theatre seemed to have caught a bug for the eight-
eenth century, revivals of a kind of Merrie England
era: at the National, Oliver Goldsmiths She Stoops
To Conquer; in the West End, Alan Bennetts The
Madness of George III; Off-West End, Farquars The
Recruiting Ofcer. While youre watching, spare a
glance at the period costumes. As if a neat mix of
laughter and nostalgia can drown out the pains of
recession.
Elsewhere, there are denite signs that British
new writing, which seemed to be in a contestatory
mood from 2009 to 2011, was slowly turning
conservative. At one theatre after another, the pre-
vailing genre was the return of the family play:
Nina Raines Tribes, Anya Reisss Spur of the
Moment (both 2010), April de Angeliss Jumpy,
Tom Wellss The Kitchen Sink, Joe Penhalls
Haunted Child, Ryan Craigs The Holy Rosenbergs
(all 2011), Nancy Harriss Our New Girl and
David Eldridges In Basildon (both 2012). The
list could go on. Playwrights who had enjoyed a
wild youth, hanging out in me and my mates
plays, now grew up, and became very serious
about parenting, childcare and school runs. Even
when such plays showed terrible families, they
didnt criticise the institution of marriage; even
when they had a critical edge, their settings living
rooms and kitchens were traditional. Not only
was the subject matter overwhelmingly domestic,
but most of these plays seemed to appeal to the
fact that middle-class audiences love to recognise
middle-class characters doing middle-class things in
middle-class homes.
Of course, many of these plays could be thought-
provoking and powerful on stage. In Alexi Kaye
Campbells The Faith Machine, the ghost of
Sophies dead father haunts her mind, and appears
on stage with her, offering his own ideas as she talks
with her boyfriend Tom. In David Eldridges In
Basildon, the climax sees Shelley physically attacking
the wife of her cousin. Its a gesture that feels out of
character until you realise that a few days at home
have dragged Shelley into the mindset of a child. In
Nina Raines Tribes, a deaf character, Billy, struggles
to make himself heard in a family too busy shouting
to listen. Fascinating as these insights into the
family are, it seems that they all suggest that the
past weighs on the present. Where we come from
seems to follow us like a bad smell. And isnt that a
conservative feeling?
Likewise, some of the best recent new plays tra-
velled back in time to make their political points. So
John Hodges Collaborators (National, 2012) and
David Edgars Written on the Heart (RSC, 2011)
were both set in the past, and David Hares new
play, South Downs (Chichester, 2011), is a response
to Rattigans The Browning Version, which it joins
in a double bill. But the danger with using the past
to illuminate the present is that some members of

the audience wont see the parallels and will just
enjoy the nostalgia. Forget about resonance and
just admire the frocks.
Okay, some plays took a more experimental
route: Nick Paynes Constellations (Royal Court,
2012), Lucinda Coxons Herding Cats (Bath,
2010), Lou Ramsdens Hundreds and Thousands
(ETT, 2011), Abi Morgans Lovesong (Frantic
Assembly, 2011) and Martin Crimps Play House
(Orange Tree, 2012) showed an exuberant joy in
theatricality. Philip Ridleys Tender Napalm
(Southwark, 2011) was wildly imaginative and
his Shivered (Southwark, 2012) was both a family
play and a successful experiment in theatre form.
But these plays were often conned to studio or
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fringe spaces, as if they needed quarantine. Last
year, one of the highlights of British theatre was
London Road, Alecky Blythes innovative verbatim
theatre musical at the National, but what about
this year?
As 2012 passed, these trends continued. Plays by
younger writers, such as Ella Hicksons Boys
(HighTide) or Matthew Dunsters Childrens
Children (Almeida), were psychologically percep-
tive but traditional in form. The National promoted
Stephen Beresfords The Last of the Haussmans and
James Grahams This House, both about the 1970s,
both plodding. Elsewhere, Phil Porters Blink
(Soho) and Kieran Lynns An Incident at the
Border (Finborough) were both essentially rom-
coms. Mike Bartletts most successful venture was
a stage version of Hugh Hudsons 1981 lm
Chariots of Fire (Hampstead then West End).
Even the most daring experiments in form Caryl
Churchills Love and Information (Royal Court) and
Duncan Macmillans Lungs (Paines Plough) carried
no radical charge. Whatever happened to anger in
British new writing?
We have been here before. In the late 1980s, new
writing was seen as being in crisis because it was
conned to studio spaces, lacked special funding
and because theatres preferred to put on history
plays, adaptations of novels and revamped classics
rather than risky new work. So, today, where are the
high-prole poetic and exceptionally theatrical new
works? Are we perhaps, in the current age of aus-
terity, returning to those dark days? If so, this is
tragic because without innovative new plays, theatre
as an art form will ossify. As Read All About It
says, Now youre gonna have to see me hurtin/ in addition to being charged with insulting
Coz pretending everything is alright when it aint,
really isnt working.
v this prosecution is part of an emerging pattern of
251
CTR BACKPAGES
Free Theatre Against Fear in Turkey
Brendan McCall
Brendan McCall was a Visiting Assistant Professor of
Theatre at Bilkent University (Turkey) for the 2011
12 academic year. He is the Artistic Director of
Ensemble Free Theatre Norway, and currently
Manager of the Cummins Theatre in Western
Australia.
April 2005. South of Istanbul, in the town of
Bilecik, a Turkish ag is set on re during the
Kurdish New Years festivities. In response, protes-
ters burn the books of the internationally-
respected Turkish novelist and Nobel laureate,
Orhan Pamuk. Soon thereafter, a local administra-
tor in Isparta orders the seizure of Pamuks works
from all public libraries. Apparently, those who
attack writers and their works in Turkey can do
so with impunity (International PEN Calls for
Government Condemnation of Attacks on
Author Orhan Pamuk, IFEX: The Global
Network for Free Expression website, 6 April
2005). A few years later, Pamuk writes an editorial
stating that neither in Europe nor in Turkey is
there a realistic hope that Turkey will join Europe
in the near future. To admit to having lost this
hope would be as crushing as to see relations with
Europe breaking down entirely, so no one has the
heart even to utter the words (Orhan Pamuk,
The Souring of Turkeys European Dream,
Guardian, 23 December 2010).
January 2007. Hrant Dink returns from a screen-
ing of Carla Garapedians Screamers, a documen-
tary which includes an interview with him about the
Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide. A
Turkish citizen of Armenian descent, Dink
approaches the ofces of Agos, the Armenian
weekly newspaper he founded in Istanbul in 1996,
when suddenly he is shot in the back of the head
three times at point-blank-range. The police cap-
ture the 17-year-old assailant, Ogun Samast, the
following day. However, photographs later surface
which show Samast holding a Turkish ag while
policemen pose with him (World Brieng/Europe:
Turkey, Anger as Police Pose with Suspect, New
York Times, 3 February 2007). Dink had received
numerous death threats from Turkish nationalists,
Turkishness three times since 2002, under Article
301 of Turkeys Penal Code. By the time his third
case was led, Amnesty International stated that
 252
harassment against the journalist exercising his right
to freedom of expression (Turkey: Prosecution of
Journalist is Harassment, News & Events on
Amnesty International UK website, 27 September
2006).
May 2012. Lunch time at Bilkent University in
Ankara, where I have been a Visiting Assistant
Professor within the Department of Theatre for
the past academic year. I am teaching classes in
Movement, Directing, and Acting, as well as
directing an original adaptation of Henrik Ibsens
A Dolls House in Turkish. After teaching a Speech
class one of my colleagues, Ozlem Ersonmez,
enters my ofce, visibly upset. Theyre closing
the state theatres, she says, on the verge of tears.
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Im going to be jobless, after 27 years. Turkeys Osman (Young Osman) playing at the state-
tradition of state-nanced theatres dates to
Ataturks formation of the republic in 1923,
when the policy was seen as a way to further the
Westernization of society. State theatres are sub-
sidised with $63 million annually, and each year
about 5,000 performances enjoy strong attendance
(Dorian Jones, Turkish Actors Protest State
Control of Theatres, Voice of America, 21 May
2012). Because of their state-support, theatres are
able to keep ticket prices affordable for the general
public, maintain high production values, tour
extensively throughout the country, and employ
the vast majority of professional theatre artists in
Turkey. While there are a few private, independent
theatres in Turkey, all of them currently present
their work in the cultural capital of Istanbul, offer-
ing experimental works that only the upper-class or
tourists can afford. Altogether, theatres in Turkey
had an audience of 4.7 million in 2010, the last
year for which gures are available, according to a
study by Bilgi University of Istanbul. By contrast,
in the same year, Turkish cinemas had an audience
of 40.7 million, according to gures published by
the Culture Ministry (Susanne Gsten, Overhaul
of State Theatres Opens Turkish Cultural Rift,
New York Times, 30 May 2012). Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2003 with the
promise of preserving what is good in Ataturks
work and dispensing with the hubris; however,
many individuals I have spoken to in Ankara
believe the Prime Minsters true aim is to turn
Turkey into a Sheriah society, albeit with a modern
economy (Atilla Yesilada, The Curtain Goes
Down on Modern Turkey, Turkish Politics
Updates, 29 May 2012). Instead of moving closer
towards joining the continent of Europe, Turkey
wants to position itself as a leader in the Middle
East, particularly after the recent political upheaval
of the Arab Spring. Threats against journalists and
writers at times resulting in imprisonment or
even death are cited as evidence of an insidious
agenda executed by Erdogans ruling AK Party.
According to Turkeys theatre community,
Erdogan is essentially censoring free speech by
ceasing state-funding for Turkeys 58 state thea-
tres. Erdogan and his conservative AK Party seem
to desire a counter-revolution of the Western-
leaning Turkish republic which celebrates secular
activities such as the performing arts, in favor of a
one nation, one religion homogeneity. How did
this attack on theatre begin? What were the sparks
that lit the fuse?
April 2011. Sumeyye Erdogan daughter of
Turkeys Prime Minister walks out of Genc
sponsored Kck Theatre in Ankara. While the
actual facts of what happened are still in dispute,
Sumeyye claims that, during an improvised
sequence of audience-interaction during the per-
formance, she was humiliated by one of the actors
for wearing a headscarf and chewing gum. The
culprit, actor Tolga Tuncer, is suspended and sum-
moned before Minister of Culture Ertugrul
Gunay, who declares that actors (have) no right
to interact with their audiences. Tuncer says he is
sorry that Sumeyye was offended, but does not
apologize for his actions, which he contends were
part of the play. He says he only picked her
because she was chewing gum, and sitting in the
front row (Flachra Gibbons, Turkeys PM
Threatens Theatres After Actor Humiliates
Daughter, Guardian, 17 May 2012).
April 2012. After 70 performances at the Istanbul
City Theatre without protest, Daily Obscene
Secrets by Chilean playwright Marco Antonio de
la Parra is removed from the repertoire. Kadir
Topbas, Istanbuls Mayor and a member of the
ruling AK Party, transfers control of what is pro-
duced by municipal theatres to his administration.
Despite ensuing protests in the city by members of
the professional theatre community, Prime Minister
Erdogan asserts that Those involved in theatre
stand outside the bars with a whiskey glass in their
hand, an all-knowing attitude, and insult the people
without producing anything. (Jones, Voice of
America, 21 May 2012). Erdogans tirades against
arrogant, alcoholic actors and an arts establish-
ment he claims holds ordinary people in contempt
shocks Turkey (Gibbons, Guardian, 17 May 2012)
After congratulating Mayor Topbas, Prime Minister
Erdogan proposes to privatize all of Turkeys state-
run theatres, and to remove all of their funding.
You can perform in your theatres freely after priva-
tization. If there is a need for support, then we as

the government can sponsor plays that we want, he
said. No theatres are being run by the state in
almost any developed country (Turkish Prime
Ministers Bid to Privatize Theatres Stirs Uproar,
Hurriyet Daily News, 30 April 2012). Contrary to
Erdogans claim, the majority of theatres in Europe
are, in fact, state-run: from England and France to
Norway and Germany. The fact that a head of state
whose country borders the European continent is
unaware of this, or denies this fact, should be cause
for alarm. It is also strange that Erdogan wants to
privatize Turkeys theatres rst, and then provide
state-funding afterwards to select venues. Faruk
Logoglu, Deputy Chair of the Republican
Peoples Party in Turkey, asserts that If the state
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theatres are being privatised, then only people who
have money can exhibit their arts in Turkey.
Eraslan Saglam, an actor with the City Theatre,
said that it would have a negative impact, because
theatres need state support (Ibid, Hurriyet Daily
News, 30 April 2012). With state-support, Turkeys
theatres keep their ticket prices affordable to the
general population at 6 to 10 Turkish lira per ticket
(about 4 Euros). State-support also makes it possi-
ble for theatre productions to tour to smaller cities
throughout the country like Erzurum, Adana, and
Konya. Eliminating the ability to tour would
deprive smaller cities of important cultural expo-
sure (Protests Against Privatization Continue in
Capital, Hurriyet Daily News, 15 May 2012), and
privatization would mean that only those wealthy
enough in large cities such as Istanbul would be
able to afford a ticket. Rather than censoring indi-
vidual plays or playwrights, Erdogan is simply
removing the nancial resources that create the
opportunity for people to see theatre at all.
Another change that raised eyebrows is that which
will be made to the repertoire selection board. In
the present regulations, two members of the board
are selected from among the City Theatre actors,
whereas the new regulation replaces them with two
bureaucrats. The actors and actresses say that this
new structure is designed to bring the repertoire
under governmental control, and will result in
bureaucratic censorship (Anger Grows Over
Theatre Management Regulations, Hurriyet Daily
News, 20 April 2012). Theatre is being separated
from theatre artists, Sahin Erguney said at a protest
earlier this spring. He went on to add that if artists
are cast out of the management of an art institution
like city theatres, then art will become dominated
by politics (Actors Gather to Protest New Theatre
regulations, Hurriyet Daily News, 25 April 2012).
253
CTR BACKPAGES
May 2012. On Mothers Day (13 May), I joined
actors, directors, and playwrights for a protest out-
side Ankaras Kck Theatre, which performed
Gen Osman earlier this season. Actors and direc-
tors, technicians and designers, gathered outside the
theatre to unfurl banners saying free theatre against
fear while listening to cultural and civil leaders
condemn Erdogan. The mood within the
assembled protestors lacked hope or optimism that
their cries would be heard, or that the marches over
the past two months throughout the country would
move Erdogan to repeal his stance. As Turkish
director Cem Emller put it, We dont know
what the exact outcome will be for all of us yet,
but it will denitely be bad, that is certain. And
there is nothing that we can do. But not everyone
in the cultural sector is sympathetic to the theatre
communitys position against Erdogans proposed
changes. Professor Talat Sait Halman, who served
as Turkeys rst Minister of Culture, believes that
privatization is the right decision, as it will address
endemic problems within the system. When exam-
ining the archives of state theatre artists going back
40 years, he saw that many theatre artists had not
taken the stage for a single play in 3 years, but they
still got their salary. They did not do anything for
the theatre. Artists didnt have permission to take
roles in other productions, but they had other jobs.
A vivid example was an actor who had been paid his
salary for 11 years, without performing in a single
play. He was running a coffee house in Ankara
(Two Draft Plans on Agenda for Theatres,
Hurriyet Daily News, 19 May 2012). Veteran
Turkish actor and director Haldun Dormen
expressed similar criticisms. He says that he respects
those that work in Turkeys State Theatres, but I
know that they are earning money for nothing
there. There should be contract system, like the
National Theatre in Britain. Noting that in a con-
tractual system the actors have freedom to play
whatever roles they want, Dormen said this was
another problem in Turkey. People cannot play
the role they want. Lots of people play roles that
are not suitable for them (Hatice Utkan, City and
State Theatres Should be Revised, Hurriyet Daily
News, 22 May 2012). But ultimately Dorman does
not believe that privatization is the cure for Turkish
theatres ailments. Who will buy the theatres? The
theatre is an institution that cannot earn any money.
It is the governments duty to support theatre. A
civilised Turkey should do that (Ibid.).
v
 254
Colorblind?
A Series of Staged Readings
Examining Racial Identity On Stage
at English Theatre Berlin
Daniel Brunet
Daniel Brunet is the Producing Artistic Director of
English Theatre Berlin. A theatre maker and trans-
lator, his directorial work and translations have
been presented internationally and his translations
and essays have been published in PEN America,
The Mercurian, Asymptote, Theatre and
TheatreForum. He is the recipient of a Fulbright
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grant as well as a grant from the PEN Translation
Fund and a Literature Fellowship in Translation
from the National Endowment of the Arts.
Land of ideas. Motor of the European economy.
Home of Oktoberfest, Dirndls and Lederhosen.
While Germany is known for many things beyond
its borders, few would suspect that its proportion of
foreign-born population rivals that of the United
States. Nevertheless, a recent statistic in Facts
About Germany, a publication ofcially supported
by the German Federal Foreign Ofce, claims that
as of 2011, more than ten million of Germanys 82
million inhabitants, over 12 percent of the popula-
tion, were born abroad. In comparison, the last
census in the United States found that 40 million
of its 300 million inhabitants were foreign-born,
again, more than 12 percent of the population.
Whats more, this demographic shift in Germany
didnt even begin until the middle of the twentieth
century. Nowhere in Germany is this more evident
than in Berlin. Not only does Berlin have the largest
community of Turks outside of Turkey (well over
300,000, or some seven percent of Berlins total
population) thanks to the West German
Gastarbeiter (guest worker) program; East German
partnerships and policies have also resulted in a
large population of Vietnamese and there are also
signicant populations of Russians, Arabs, Poles and
people from the former Yugoslavia. This diversity is
far from represented on the nations stages and
within Germanys cultural institutions. Indeed,
while often lauded for the most generous state
and municipal subsidies for the arts in the world,
vehement protests against two very different theatre
productions in January and February of 2012 laid
bare the gaping chasm between the content pre-
sented by German theatres and the nations demo-
graphic realities.
Digitisation, social media and other avenues of
networking and collective empowerment brought
about a shift of seismic proportions in the German
theatre world as black activists, other activists of
colour and white activists came together to speak
out against a disturbing German theatrical tradition:
the use of blackface. Originating with a racist form
of nineteenth-century popular entertainment indi-
genous to the United States, minstrelsy, this prac-
tice features white performers in black makeup
presenting a deeply stereotyped caricature of a
black person.
When Berlins Schlosspark Theatre revived US
playwright Herb Gardners 1984 boulevard comedy
Ich bin nicht Rappaport (Im Not Rappaport) for its
40th production in Germany with Joachim Bliese (a
white German actor who played the same role in
the same makeup in the plays German premiere in
1987) in brown makeup portraying African-
American character Midge Carter, the resulting
ood of protests on the theatres Facebook page
brought about the formation of Bhnenwatch, an
activist group dedicated to ending racist practices
on German stages. The theatres management
claimed that it had tried and failed to nd a suitable
black actor for the role and that the play had been
performed in Germany with a white actor in brown
makeup playing Midge for decades without com-
plaint. On 12 February 2012, Bhnenwatch acti-
vists protested the Deutsches Theater revival of Dea
Lohers Unschuld (Innocence). The production,
directed by Michael Thalheimer, featured two
white ensemble members, Andreas Dhler and
Peter Moltzen, in blackface with red makeup exag-
gerating their lips in the roles of Fadoul and Elisio,
written by Loher as illegalised black immigrants.
Though Thalheimer claimed this decision was
made in order to confront the (primarily white
and middle class) audience with their worst stereo-
types of a black person, a public forum held by the
Deutsches Theater on 21 March 2012 made devas-
tatingly clear the personal pain inicted by this
choice on Germans and non-Germans of colour
and not of colour.
Despite an ever-increasing number of foreign-
born or non-white Germans and a large immigrant
population, this incredibly diverse group has very
few places where they are offered the opportunity to
construct their own narratives and tell their own
stories. Ballhaus Naunynstrae, perhaps the worlds
rst postmigrantisches Theatre (post-migratory
theatre), is such a place. Founded in 2008 by
Shermin Langhoff, who immigrated to Germany
herself from Turkey as a child, the institution
became an international success story with its

2010 production of Verrcktes Blut (Crazy Blood),
a play based on a motif from the French lm La
journe de la jupe in which a schoolteacher in
Germany forces her class of immigrant students to
read aloud from Schillers Die Ruber (The Robbers)
at gunpoint. The production was invited to the
Berlin Theatetreffen, an annual festival where the
ten most notable stage productions in Germany
are brought to the capital and presented over the
course of three weeks. It has since toured around
the world.
One seemingly direct response to the protests
against the use of blackface in early 2012 was the
surprise announcement in May of 2012 that
Shermin Langhoff would be succeeding Armin
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Petras as artistic director of Berlins Maxim Gorki
Theater, a state-subsidised institution with an
annual budget of nearly ten million euros.
Langhoffs departure from Ballhaus Naunynstrae
to assume the associate directorship of the Wiener
Festwochen [Vienna Festival] in 2012 had been
made public an entire year earlier, in May of 2011.
My own response to these protests, both as an
immigrant (or expat, an etymological synonym
seemingly only applied to those immigrants from
wealthy nations) from the United States living in
Berlin and as the North American translator of Dea
Lohers plays, was to initiate Colorblind? at English
Theatre Berlin, a six-month series of staged read-
ings of international plays examining racial identity
on stage that took place between August 2012 and
January 2013, featuring Berlin-based actors from
around the world and all followed by post-perfor-
mance discussions. Within this series, I selected a
number of plays dealing explicitly with race and
representation and used them as the means to initi-
ate an ongoing exploration and conversation with
our audience and with the artists participating in the
readings.
Colorblind? began with Neighbors by US play-
wright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a play which lit-
erally places minstrelsy on stage when a family
composed of a modern-day minstrel troupe, perma-
nently in blackface and minstrel garb, moves in next
door to a mixed race family in a small university
town. The play allowed me to examine differences
between the two protested productionsIch bin
nicht Rappaport featured a white actor in makeup
attempting to approximate a realistic human skin
tone while the makeup used in Innocence was clearly
adopted 1:1 from minstrelsyas well as to work
closely with Berlins community of English-speak-
ing actors, native speakers as well as non-native
speakers, with African roots. Two of these actors
were Alexander Thomas, an African-American
255
CTR BACKPAGES
living in Berlin with his German wife and familiar
to New York audiences as the author and performer
of Throw Pitchfork, an autobiographical solo show
that was part of New York Theatre Workshops
2001/2002 season, and Ernest Allan Hausmann,
an Afrodeutscher (Afro-German) actor who had
been slated to perform in the Deutsches Theater
production of Bruce Norris Clybourne Park before
the author withdrew the rights to the play in
January of 2012 following a disagreement over
casting. Others were members of Label Noir, a
collective of Afrodeutsche actors that formed in
2009 and produces its own self-devised work often
featuring themes of racial identity while its members
continue to pursue independent careers as actors,
demanding the same consideration in casting as
their white counterparts.
The next play in the series, Belong, by British-
Nigerian playwright Bola Agbaje, premiered at
Londons Royal Court in April 2012. It examines
the Nigerian diaspora and a phenomenon unique to
immigrants; a pronounced lack of identity both
with their native culture as well as their host culture,
always seen as the other by both respective groups.
With a cast led by Michael Ojake, a Nigerian actor
living in Berlin, the presentation of this script
allowed the examination of a new facet of belong-
ing and community.
Colorblind? was originally conceived as a three-
play series, ending with my translation of Dea
Lohers Innocence. A major impetus for my creation
of the series in the rst place was a desire to ensure
that this very important topic nd its way to English
Theatre Berlins audience. While we count many
Anglophile Germans among our patrons, we are
also Berlins international performing arts center
and the only institution in the German capital
where guests who do not speak German will always
nd work in English. Presenting a reading of
Innocence offered an opportunity both to separate
the play from the controversy surrounding its pro-
duction by Michael Thalheimer and to succinctly
frame the issue by inviting members of
Bhnenwatch to participate in the post-perfor-
mance discussion. From an artistic standpoint, the
only casting decision that made sense to me was to
cast Afrodeutsche actors in the roles of Fadoul and
Elisio (Moses Leo and Ernest Allan Hausmann) just
as I cast African-American actors in those roles
when I presented a reading of the play at the
Goethe-Institut in New York in January of 2012.
The reading was well received, the discussion
intense and relationships forged during the rst
three months of Colorblind? led to its extension.
Upon meeting Ernest Allan Hausmann, Alexander
 256
Thomas told me about his play Schwarz gemacht
(How Klaus Found His Blackness and Outlived the
Nazis), a work in progress looking at the experi-
ences of black Germans during the National
Socialist era. Encouraged by actually meeting an
Afrodeutscher actor, Alexander continued to
develop his play and the most recent draft was
presented with Ernest in the lead role in
November. Schwarz gemacht will receive a full
production at English Theatre Berlin in 2014
under my direction and we intend to realize it as
an international co-production.
December brought a reading of We Are Proud To
Present A Presentation About the Herero of
Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa,
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From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years
18841915 by US playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury
while the play was still receiving its New York pre-
miere at Soho Rep and looked at how contextualis-
ing a past genocide exposes the scars of the present.
The series ofcially ended in January with US play-
wright Adrienne Dawes Am I White, based heavily
on the real-life story of Leo Felton, a white supre-
macist born to an African-American father and a
Jewish-American mother. Steeped in surrealism
and fever dreams, this play also took up the histor-
ical theme of the tragic mulatto that originated on
stage in the United States in Dion Boucicaults mid-
nineteenth century play The Octoroon.
Also By Mail, German-Nigerian playwright
Olumide Popoolas new play, is an absolutely essen-
tial addition to this list of texts and its presentation
at English Theatre Berlin on March 1 served as a
coda to the Colorblind? series. Examining both the
consequences of the Nigerian diaspora and the
troubling reality still encountered by many
Afrodeutsche (and others) in Germany, it clearly
illustrates how much work remains to be done to
raise awareness, empower individuals and ensure that
equality exists for all. Published as the second volume
of Sharon Dodua Otoos Witnessed series dedicated
to exploring the black German experience, the play
focuses on German-Nigerian siblings Wale and
Funke when they are summoned to Lagos in the
wake of the sudden death of their estranged father.
While Also By Mail is a work of ction, the character
Wales experiences in Germany are unfortunately
ripped from actual headlines. In December of
2010, a 25-year-old black German law student
from Kassel was subjected to a detailed inspection
of his personal identication papers while riding a
train operated by Deutsche Bahn. When he ques-
tioned why he had been singled out, the inspector
said he looked foreign. Upon comparing these tac-
tics to those of the SS, the police charged him with
slander. The young man pursued the case in court,
only to have the Verwaltungsgericht Koblenz declare
in March of 2012 that this kind of racial proling,
where the police are allowed to check someones
papers based solely on the colour of their skin, was
allowed on train routes frequently used by those
attempting to enter Germany illegally. Upon
appeal, the Oberverwaltungsgericht Rheinland-Pfalz
decreed in October of 2012 that a foreign appear-
ance and the colour of ones skin cannot be the sole
criteria for the inspection of ones papers. The stu-
dent received a formal apology from the German
Federal Police but this case reveals the extent to
which this problem exists and how far society still
must go to ensure equal treatment and opportunities
for all. Indeed, the question of the portrayal of racial
identity on stage is one that continues to be posed,
in Germany and elsewhere. The vehemence that has
accompanied the various protests reveals just how
jagged the fault lines are between certain commu-
nities right below the surface.
v
On the Concept of Laughter in
Laughing Hole
An interview with La Ribot
Edited by Abi Weaver
Abi Weaver is a young theatre and lm director,
producer and writer based in London. Before study-
ing a post-graduate at The Central School of Speech
and Drama, Abi produced her rst feature documen-
tary that screened on television and festivals world-
wide. Abis interest in theatre lies in a relationship
with Jacques Derridas proposal of Deconstruction
making a contradictory turn that places the voice
and body at the centre of difference.
Maria La Ribot is a leading performance artist based
in Switzerland. Originally coming from a back-
ground in dance, La Ribot studied in Madrid and
Paris and travelled to work in cities such as London
where she developed an internationally acclaimed
career crossing the boundaries between perfor-
mance, conceptual art, plastic arts and dance.
Laughing Hole (2006present) is just one exam-
ple of La Ribot's work that places movement as
perception from the perspective of the body at the
forefront of her work. The performance is dura-
tional and features hundreds of hand written signs,
which plaster the oor (and eventually the walls)

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Image 1. La Ribot: Laughing Hole (2006), Aichi Triennale Japan 2010. Photo: Gilles Jobin.
and are picked up, humiliated and tripped over by
dancers. The performance takes on the guise of
anti-aesthetic, anti-dance and anti-authoritarian
sending out a message that the powers above us
cannot control everything, in this instance, they
cannot control laughter.
The question of laughter has long been a
poignant question for the arts and humanities.
Over the centuries the meaning of laughter has
transformed according to politics, religion and
common trends of the times. In the Old
Testament laughter is decidedly dangerous,
indeed even follie. The interjection of carnival
in traditions all over the world, which Mikhail
Bahktin so masterfully critises in Rabelais and his
World, presents laughter as a device in turning the
world upside down and the body inside out. But
what is laughter today?
La Ribots work on the accident and the fool
offers a contemporary view on laughter whilst pre-
senting a rehearsal technique signicant of her
inter-disciplinarity in the arts. Beside La Ribots
conceptual underpinning in Laughing Hole, the
performance presents a rehearsal technique of
endurance, focus and discipline. Contrary to this,
it is a performance that conceptually negates the
endurance, focus and discipline that is required of
the under-paid and exploited worker.
The message that La Ribot seems to give is that
laughter is an action that objects to objectication.
Her website is www.laribot.com
257
CTR BACKPAGES
What were your inspirations for making
Laughing Hole?
I was terried after 9/11. Bushs war on terror -
dealing with all kind of illegalities and lies -
Guantanamo for example. We went to war - we
participated in that war and we watched it on TV
and in the newspapers. I saw and felt impotent in
front of this horror. Since 2003, this tragic thing was
getting more complicated and more violent. In 2006
it was the highest point in terror. Abu Ghraib, secret
ights, CIA tortures. Torture was permitted again!
What could a performance be in this political
context, in 2006? How can I use laughter again?
What could I do with laughter under these circum-
stances? Laughter in Laughing Hole operates as a
big question in this respect.
I had worked with laughter rst in 1994 in a
piece called Los trances del avestruz, which is a duo
with the actor Juan Loriente and myself. Since then
I was intrigued because of the audiences reaction,
which was very interesting, because it was so vio-
lent. It was in between 2002 and 2004 when I did a
big project in London called 40 espontaneos. Forty
non-professional actors were invited in the perfor-
mance. They were the only performers. I worked
with them for 5 days and then they worked by
themselves on stage. I just asked them to laugh.
During the whole performance they were laughing.
All 40 people laughing! That helped me to create
complicity in the group, which was very useful to
 258
drive the situation that was not particularly funny.
For me it was quite dark even though the parti-
cipants were beautiful and colourful and had a lot of
tasks and clothes and things to do.
How did you begin working on Laughing Hole?
Laughing Hole started because I was looking for the
violence in laughter. I was looking for the dark side
of laughter that thing that I couldnt nd strong
enough in 40 Espontneos.
Laughing Hole was a second try. I substituted the
bright strong colourful materials used in 40
Espontaneos where everyone was dressed up (it was
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very beautiful sensual bright and hedonist) for 900
cardboard hand written signs with disturbing words
and the 3 performers/dancers wearing ip ops.
In June 2006 I was invited to Art Unlimited,
Basel Art Fair, to do a performance with my gallery
from Madrid, Soledad Lorenzo. I wanted to do a
performance in a gallery space working with laugh-
ter by myself. I asked Clive Jenkins, who is a com-
poser, to work with the sound of my laughter live.
I found performing alone was too hard and too
violent. And by myself I could only work 4 hours
(with pauses). What I produced in Basel was more
to do with endurance than with laughter, so it was
not exactly what I wanted. What would produce
laughter while doing or saying or passing (in our
real world and minds) horrible, funny, stupid, banal
or strong things?
In January 2007, I invited two dancers to join
me. Marie Caroline Hominal and Delphine Rosay.
We began to discover strategies and ways of work-
ing. We found many things working together,
much more than I did on my own. We worked
together 8 hours a day we laughed for 8 hours!
Laughter was a full time job! This is the moment
the project began to change. I extended the piece
to 8 hours, taking turns. The piece now talks much
more about laughter than about endurance. The
question is raised up.
In Laughing Hole laughter works as a distortion
of the drama. The drama in Laughing Hole is how
we, the three dancers, use the relation between the
body and words.
How did the performance begin to evolve with two
performers?
The task of taking something from the oor and
putting it on the wall whilst laughing, which is the
basic instruction begins to change after the rst hour.
It changes from an efciency during the rst hours to
something totally non-efcient in the last hours.
We wear ip ops, which are very uncomfortable
shoes to work. One third of the world's workers wear
ip ops in factories. It is a bad type of shoe and it
makes you trip up and fall on the cardboard signs
spread across the oor. We use the falling so that
when we are falling, we try to do something with the
body and the sign. This allows us to stay there on the
oor showing the sign for a minute or so.
We try to repeat this accident. We voluntarily
provoke the accident. We force ourselves to fall and
seek the accident again and again. Then after one
hour or so, we change the amount of time we are
on the oor. At the beginning we are on the oor
for one minute and this changes to 4 even 5 min-
utes graduating this time on the oor to something
that we can hold strongly and powerfully.
After one more hour working like this, we break
the body, the gure, the image, the shape and we
start being less powerful and more soft - more
smooth. The idiot starts to appear because we play
literally with words and play with the very real
situations we face in the performance. Real falls,
real people in the audience who are disturbed or
uncomfortable or very concentrated or are nding it
all very funny.
We invent situations like showing off exaggeratedly
or doing silly things. We might be obscene and sexual
showing our hole. And then from that point we
start mixing things and exaggerating any situation -
getting to what we call the delirium, where we do
nothing more than laugh and laugh on the oor
showing the signboards and resisting work.
We have a big transformation at this point.
Laughter is a continuous motor. There is a resis-
tance to repetition, to work, to do The perfor-
mance is a rebellion! We are rebels against the order
and against instructions.
In Jean-Luc Nancys Birth to Presence, there is a
section on laughter and presence where he writes:
the question here is not: what is the woman
laughing about? Not why is she laughing? Rather,
the question would be What is this poem laughing
about? I felt this to be relevant to Laughing
Hole. What is the art work laughing about?
I dont know exactly Nancys concept but as far as I
have explored laughter it helps to evidence the pre-
sence of someone in a very strong and powerful
way. This is similar to singing and talking but laugh-
ter has more power. While singing and talking are

poetic or specic respectively, laughter stays in the
middle - specic enough to focus ones mind so that
the questions appear immediately and abstract
enough to make the laughter dream.
We work with a paradoxical idea all over
Laughing Hole that could be one poem:
Last thing to do, (falling) must last for all life
(doing-being).
Another poem, I would say is the accident and
the idiot. The idiot is a very important gure in
Laughing Hole, and in many or all my works. I am
talking about the fool, the rebel, the buffoon, the
clown. The idiot who is marginal and an outsider.
An outsider in Laughing Hole watching - being the
audience and acting both things at the same time.
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How do you sustain laughter throughout the
performance?
I think it is a matter of will. One have to want to do
it. Each performance is a new experience of how to
deal with this will. How to deal with this real situa-
tion. Then after every performance there is a long
discussion of re-composing or re-thinking how to
do the next invitation.
We always warm up the voice and body and
frequently run and do yoga together. At the begin-
ning we practised typical breathing techniques, but
now we just go and we warm up on the road.
We have to try to be real and laugh but some-
times we cannot! We need a trick there have tricks
to do this like playing jokes or hiding behind the
cardboard. Clive, the composer, sometimes shakes
his head. When we see this it means that we are
stuck in a repetition of sound or in mood. We have
hit a wall. Then we breath we have to change
direction change the way of breathing because
being stuck is often related to a specic breathing
pattern.
We have to always do the same thing. The rst
hour of the performance we are warming up, pro-
jecting the whole performance. There is a moment
in the performance usually in the second or third
hour that we feel like we have to push very strong.
This is the moment where we feel like we can't go
any further. At this point we try to relax and stay
connected with the body. We have to push through
this block and it takes a lot of effort. We have to go
further so we push and push- then pop! We call
this the Octopussy. We feel a muscle inside, our
guts , they almost burst outwards like a reversal in
the body. A feeling that we could stay laughing all
259
CTR BACKPAGES
our life. It is immense pleasure- another world we
push through our limit. I could imagine it is some-
thing like being born. You have to go out and there
is no way back it is your time and your moment.
Could we call this coming into presence? Being
born or arriving into presence?
I am not sure I know exactly what is meant by
presence, but if you do not experience the
Octopussy it often means you are not being com-
pletely in the performance. If you do not experience
this breaking of the limit of the Octopussy, you
are always ghting to be there. It's not that you
were not there its just that you are not there
completely.
This has something to do with sex and orgasms. I
think this feeling is very orgasmic and very sexual.
There is a moment when there is plenty of yourself.
This could be presence. The body is totally free and
you are there. You see that you are there and the
whole thing is going because you are there. In this
moment you are not ghting any more. You are
there - being in presence in a strong presence.
You mentioned laughter is an action. Could you
explain a little more about this?
I had all of these problems trying to understand
how laughing is just an action. Laughter is not
just funny. Its not something directly related to
the comic. It is just a sound and because its a
sound we can understand that it is also a muscle
that we have to warm up and treat in the same way
as we treat our body. It has exibility and is effected
by cold or warm it is dynamic and with energy.
It's very close to how we work with the body.
The other day I gave a seminar at Geneva School
of Art about Laughing Hole. A girl asked me
whether I had worked on this performance with
children. I havent. Children can already laugh
without reason. They just have to see the other
laugh. But, if you ask them to laugh the way
that the Laughing Hole does, I am almost sure
that it would be impossible. It is too conceptual to
separate actions like falling, working, picking up
from the action of laughing, without infection in
between all the actions. I dont believe a child can
do this without infection. Laughter is a very para-
doxical action Baudelaire said something like
Laughter is just a human action that talks about
 260

superiority as a human being and at the same time Still

the inferiority of the animal. Just
Here
There
What relationship does laughter have to the written Your
word? Me

I think laughter poses a big question. It is a political
question to laugh with the absence of knowing. The
words used in Laughing Hole are a text that com-
bines stem words, which contain the idea in 3
family or group of words. One group works with
external and political words (Guantanamo, war,
occupation), the other with personal words (over
40S, mum, hole) and the other one with real per-
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Every word is combined with all the others in
every signboard. When something doesnt make
sense I take it out. Once placed on the wall the
signboards combine in between them madly such as:
food hole/disturbing mum/politician hole/
dead party
Signs such as fuck me gently and Romans go

formance Laughing Hole situations (occupation

home are exceptions invented while I was writing.
-the space- falling, laughing). Sometimes the same
There are ways to work with the body. We walk
words work for two families like:
we provoke the accident, to fall and we have to
read what is written down. We try to connect our
Occupation/the performance/space or a country body to what we have red. If we don't read we will
Hole/my hole or Guantanamo get blinded and bored If we get bored we can't
Falling/during the performance or in Guantanamo maintain laughter we can't maintain anything.
Our minds have to be engaged to be able to laugh
Some of the words used are: and to be able to have ideas all the time. We are
Hole always provoking the mind for the will to continue
Hall and make ideas to laugh. We read falling here. It is
Food so stupid! So we laugh.
Mum We keep developing the idiot in the performance -
Bay growing this in the mind. Warming up the mind
Bar to be the idiot at the end. We have to be very lucid
Over 40 s with an open body. An open hole in our body.
Politician The words make us concrete - we can disappear in
Anonymous the body in a very dance like and abstract way where
Terror sometimes we become concrete - staring at someone
Guantanamo and being there very strongly there - very real.
War
Occupation
It seemed like the audience are in a Laughing
Adjectives:
Hole what kind of responses did you get from the
Fun
audience?
Illegal
Disturbing
Sometimes the audience became hysterical, some-
Raw
times sad and sometimes silent. Once I was specta-
Lost
tor of Laughing Hole. I did not perform that day,
Maimed
because I wanted to watch it. Another dancer did it.
Verbs: I asked myself if, as a child, this could be like
To Laugh watching war. Being manipulated by the events
To Fall and searching for a way to survive, for ideas, for
To Buy your mum, for references, for what? In a total
To Die absence of sense, under the eyes of a child when
everyone is laughing.
Others:

Laughter has taken on multiple meanings and its
meaning is constantly changing according to
politics, culture, and social movements. What do
you think laughter means in the twenty-rst
century?
For me laughter now is a question. It questions us
it questions where we are - where we are now.
Where we are living ... Laughter questions.
v Comediants, she opted to leave Spain for Lecoqs
Remembering Anna Lizaran
31 August 194412 January 2013
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Maria M. Delgado
Maria M. Delgado is Professor of Theatre and Screen
Arts at Queen Mary, University of London and co-
editor of Contemporary Theatre Review.
Its difcult to explain to someone in the English-
speaking world who has never seen the great
Catalan actress Anna Lizaran, who died of cancer
on 12 January 2013, what made her so unique. She
had something of the playfulness of Judi Dench, the
wit of Maggie Smith, the down to earth humanity
of Pauline Collins, the steeliness of Helen Mirren,
Image 2. Anna Lizaran in The Cherry Orchard. Photo Ros Ribas/Teatre Lliure.
261
CTR BACKPAGES
the vocal intensity of Fiona Shaw. Anna (or Anita as
she was regularly known by her friends) was not
conventionally beautiful something she had in
common with Glenda Jackson but on a stage
she certainly knew how to hold an audience. She
had trained with Lecoq in Paris between 1974 and
1976 years when theatre training in Spain was
limited to the opportunities offered by the Institut
del Teatre in Barcelona and the RESAD in Madrid.
Like Albert Boadella of Els Joglars and Joan Font of
Paris school where the body came into play as a key
element of dcor as much as character. The inu-
ence of Lecoq (and Paris) stayed with her evi-
denced in the spirit of innovation that characterised
her work on returning to Spain. She retained a love
of clowning always knowing how to play and
win over an audience and using every part of her
body to create a role. It was this that effectively
made the personalities she created so credible and
so human.
Lizaran was also a doer who worked tirelessly to
improve the conditions of Catalan theatre. She was
a founder member of two of Catalonias core com-
panies: the physical theatre company Comediants
(1972) and the Teatre Lliure (1976). With the
latter she worked to create a theatrical culture
marked by the civic responsibility and high profes-
sional standards of Milans Piccolo theatre. Here
 262
she performed many of her most emblematic roles
under the direction of Fabi Puigserver and Llus
Pasqual. I was fortunate enough to see the revival of
Fabi Puigservers 1978 staging of Per Olov
Enquists The Night of the Tribades in 1999 where
her characterisation of the lesbian writer Maria
Carolina David offered a brilliant embodiment of
deant agency. Her stillness was utterly compelling
and profoundly unsettling. Her Ranevskaya in
Pasquals 2000 Cherry Orchard was a portrait of
ighty indecision, a buttery-like gure unable to
grasp the severity of her situation. Her weeping
beside the upstage model of the Lliure, as the com-
pany was preparing to move out of its legendary
venue in the working class area of Grcia, offered a
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metatheatrical embodiment of the companys situa-
tion on the eve of a historical relocation.
Lizarans roles were varied; indeed, she refused to
be typecast. She could embody sexual desire as
with her obsessive Miss Julie (Teatre Lliure, 1986);
she could play arched comedy and Oscar Wildish
wit as evidenced in her delicious Anna in Boston
Marriage (Teatre Lliure, 2005). She also had a
panache for highly wrought drama; no where was
this more apparent than in her mischievous charac-
terisation of the rancid, pillpopping matriarch of
Tracy Letts August: Osage County (TNC-Catalan
National Theatre, 2011) throwing out curt, cruel
replies to her familys questions and observations at
the dinner table and laughing with demented plea-
sure as she raised one taboo topic after another. Bile
and venom were also in evidence in her dual roles as
the cancer-wracked mother and prodigal daughter
in Sergi Belbels Forasters [Strangers] at the Catalan
National Theatre (2005). If her earlier role as the
painter Galctia in Scenes from an Execution
(Catalan National Theatre, 2002) showcased her
ease within the epic, here the epic was contained
and smothered within the domestic sphere as a
cruel bruiser of a mother who is all vitriol to her
children and father-in-law. As the daughter her
rancorous relationship with her teenage son was
delicately tempered by a burgeoning friendship
with a niece. She clutched her stomach pressing
down onto her rotting entrails and hoisting herself
up to walls and doors to listen in on fragments of
snatched conversations which came to torment
her. This was a performance that juggled both
antipathy and compassion, building effectively on
her Mathilde in Carme Portacelis 2003 Teatre
Lliure production of Kolts Return to the Desert.
At a time when too many actors are positioned
within an ever more narrow repertoire of roles,
Lizaran was dened by her audacity and breadth,
playfulness and humanity. Her worldly company
director in Pasquals Hamlet (2006) spoke of a
long life on the road. Her rst appearance as Ariel
in the same directors Tempest saw her peeping
through the curtain with mischievous relish, then
feigning the drowning at sea of the Napolese court
with all the charm of a pro at Charades. Her red-
gloved hands conjured a wave of further Ariels to
assist her in the set tasks, manipulating the hapless
Fernando like a listless rag doll, waving the lovers
together, sparing Gonzalo and Alonso from their
more treacherous courtiers. The characterisation
built intelligently on her memorably animated
Vladimir in Pasquals 1999 Waiting for Godot
(again at the Teatre Lliure) and her dark blue cap
and uniform-like attire clearly functioned as a nod
to the earlier production. Here she handled a baton
as if conducting an orchestra with a vaudeville rou-
tine at the ready for all eventualities.
Lizaran was an actress for all seasons with over
thirty different stage roles to her name. While asso-
ciated with the Lliure she had worked regularly at
the Catalan National Theatre [TNC] under the
direction of playwright and director Sergi Belbel.
She was in rehearsals with Belbel for David
Hirsons La bte at the Catalan National Theatre
when she rst became ill Jordi Bosch replaced her
for the productions run. She had plans to return to
the Lliure as the Lady in the Van in the adaptation
of Alan Bennetts novel planned by Pau Mir. Ill
never see this or a role I always dreamed of seeing
her play Winnie in Happy Days. Her mortality was
all too palpable in Strangers and Ventura Pons lm
Actrius [Actresses] (1996): the contrasting charac-
ters she embodied the erce mother/daughter
and the kindly dubbing actress respectively both
died of cancer. She lost her sister to cancer in 2003
and the ghosts of this death haunted her character-
isation of the dual roles in Strangers. With Ventura
Pons she transformed this stage role to lm: a tour
de force performance. Watching her at work in the
studio while lming I was struck by her humour,
her humanity and her utter professionalism. She was
always busy, always trying to ne tune her charac-
terisation, always striving to do better.
Ventura Pons was arguably her most regular lm
collaborator; Lizaran worked with him across ve
lms. They had a particular understanding: he had
seen and relished many of her stage roles. He knew
what she was capable of from the local nun in El
vicari dOlot [The Vicary of Olot] (1981) to the
suicidal hysteric in Morir (o no) [To Die (or Not)]
(1999). Her role in Almodvars Tacones lejanos
[High Heels] (1991), as the loyal assistant to
Marisa Paredes torch song singer, gures as
another of her understated performances a

woman doing a job as efciently and professionally
as possible without undue showiness or unnecessary
clutter. Anna Lizaran knew that theatre was, in the
end, about team work. She relished the teams she
was part of whether it be the lm adventures of
Ventura Pons, the uncensored principles of the
Teatre Lliure or the corporeal energy of
Comediants. The Catalan stage will miss her egali-
tarian spirit and adventurous determination.
v young playwrights through several American
In Memoriam: Howard Stein
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Oliver Mayer
Oliver Mayer is the author of over twenty plays and
Associate Professor of Dramatic Writing at the USC
School of Theatre, USA.
When I think about whats really going on in the
world, I think of Howard Stein. The stories, the
tests, the hard choices, the moments of injustice
that stick in the craw, and the thunderclouds of
common crises that galvanize us as Americans this
is our theatre at its best, the way Howard taught it,
the way he knew it could be. Howard Stein passed
away on Sunday, 14 October 2012 in Stamford,
Connecticut. He was 90 years old. He is survived
by his wife Marianne, his three sons, and many beau-
tiful grandchildren. He is also the art father to many
of the brightest voices in American dramatic writing.
Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, Howard said his
grocer father used to take me by the hand to see
the Yiddish theatre in Philadelphia. He loved going
there. The heroes in our household were not
Abraham Lincoln and George Washington but
Jacob Adler and Boris Thomashefsky. I remember
when I was ten we were sitting around the kitchen
table counting out pennies to see if there was
enough money to see The Taming of the Shrew in
Philly. There was enough for my brother to go. Not
by train by ferry, which was cheaper. So the last
pennies in the household were used to go see a play.
Events like that easily get inside you.
Not surprisingly, Howard grew up watching the
plays of Saroyan and Odets, and wanted to be a
playwright. In World War Two, he saw rst-hand
the knife edge between life and death, and upon his
return he set about celebrating the former through
drama. Howard attended Swarthmore College and
Columbia University, where his mentors included
Mark Van Doren, Barbara Pearson Lange and
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Theodore Apstein. Then he tried his hand at writ-
ing plays even moving to Provincetown to
become Eugene ONeill, he said only half in jest.
He was not without success, with two of his pieces,
In Darkness and A Sight for Sore Eyes appearing in
anthologies and later broadcast for Canadian televi-
sion. But at some point, his writing urge became a
teaching urge. Although I wonder what his plays
may have given the world had he stayed at the
literary grindstone, I rejoice in his choice to teach
generations.
In a career spanning more than half a century,
Howard devoted himself to the education of
American playwrights an odyssey that led him
through a number of universities: Northeastern,
Texas, Iowa, SUNY Purchase, Yale and Columbia.
A reball of a man, Howard studied the art form,
staying abreast of new voices and trends, and wit-
nessing its multiple textual and onstage transforma-
tions by attending several plays a week, including
the work of Beckett, Pinter, Albee, Fornes, Shange,
Pinero and Shepard. In turn, he made sure to give
his student writers the opportunity to see plays on
and off Broadway and to discuss the rapidly chan-
ging nature of dramatic art.
And what is drama? For Howard, it must have
form (the arousing and fullling of expectation) and
action (the movement, spirit and unifying quality in
a play). Over the years, his students challenged him
vociferously on both fronts. I had to adjust myself
to them , Howard remembered, Not to be them,
or for them to be me. But I had to bend, to keep on
top of things, to study, to observe. I had to listen,
to try to help them nd their own form and action.
And I had to see everything on stage so that I could
let my students know how important the theatre is.
A partial list of his students includes Ralph
Arzoomanian, Bob Auletta, Michael Henry
Brown, Lonnie Carter, Kia Corthron, Hal Hartley,
Albert Innaurato, Allan Knee, Christopher Kyle,
Rocco Landesman, Nicholas Meyer, David Milch,
Lavonne Mueller, Ted Talley, Stanley Tucci,
Wendy Wasserstein, Sigourney Weaver, Jimmy
Yoshimura, Scott McCrea, Katie Moira Ryan and
Michael John Carley. For each of us, Howard prac-
ticed tough love, on one hand holding our heads
above water even as he took us and our work into
the proverbial deep end of feeling and meaning.
Even after nally retiring from teaching, emeritus
at several institutions and well into his 80s, Howard
continued to teaches us every time we talked to him
on the phone and to read our drafts and attend our
plays when possible: because the theatre was that
important to him.
 264
In the end, Howard approached teaching the
way he approached art: with full-blown passion
and appetite. Like Flaubert, Howards art was revo-
lutionary, even if his personal life was blissfully
bourgeois; his drama was rmly on the stage.
Howards art was said and done with love, passion,
high standards, and humor. More than that, there is
a sense of family in the stories he told and the way
listened to the stories we told him in turn; I know I
am not alone in looking to him as my art father. I
praise my luck for having found him, and he having
found me, those many years ago when the New
York Times under his arm he invited me, a pro-
spective student, into a Columbia MFA writing
class and then thunderously slammed the paper on
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his desk as he asked us, Why arent you writing
about whats really going on in the world? The
words still ring in my ears, and the clarion call still
challenges me even now as both playwright and
teacher of playwrights. Howard loved to quote
Eric Bentleys assertion that playwriting has to be
caught as much as taught. He thirsted for what
Williams described as the true quality of experience
in a group of people, that cloudy, ickering, eva-
nescent ercely charged interplay of live human
beings in the thundercloud of a common crisis.
When I think about the truth of the human
experience what it means to be a thinking, feeling,
human being I think of Howard. And when I
think of plays, I know they are snares for this truth.
This is all another way of saying that my art father
taught me to be truly alive the greatest gift I have
ever received, and one I can only hope to repay in
my own art.
v
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