Stefan Brecht, who wrote about and performed in the new and revolutionary theatre that erupted in New York in the 1960’s and early ‘70’s, will be remembered at a memorial to be held Sunday, Nov. 8 at 6 PM, at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, E. 10th St. at 2nd Ave.
The memorial, a celebration of his life and work, will include performances created for the occasion by Peter Schumann, of the Bread and Puppet Theatre and, on an audio disc, by Robert Wilson; Jim Neu, a playwright who performed with Stefan in early Robert Wilson plays, will read the letter, which Brecht wrote, from Wilson’s “A Letter to Queen Victoria”. Drumming, musical performances and readings of Brecht’s poems will be part of the memorial, as will photographs and projected footage from his performances with Charles Ludlam, Robert Wilson, Stuart Sherman and Leandro Katz.
Brecht’s series on The Original Theatre of the City of New York: From the Mid-Sixties to the Mid-Seventies was left unfinished when he became ill, in 2001, with a form of Parkinson’s that destroyed his ability to write or speak. His intent was to preserve, for those in later and much changed times, as much as possible of the sense of being there in New York in the ‘60’s-70’s; his writing ranged from detailed on-the-spot descriptions, sometimes poetic in language of the time, to analysis, to documentation of the particulars of the scene that gave rise to the radically new.
Completed books are: Queer Theatre, centering on Jack Smith and on Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theatrical Company; The Theatre of Visions: Robert Wilson, evoking the “Nothing happens” spectacles of ’69 and the ‘70’s evolutions with the communal Byrd Hoffman company; and Bread and Puppet Theatre, with vivid accounts of the protest theatre on the ‘60’s streets and the first circuses in Vermont. His account of Richard Foreman’s Ontological Hysteric Theatre is due for publication in 2010.
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