Neal Swettenham is a former head of drama and visiting lecturer at Loughborough University, UK, and founded the Richard Foreman Research Archive housed there.
Richard Foreman has been writing, directing and designing avant-garde theatre in New York since he first founded his Ontological-Hysteric company there in 1968. In all that time, few directors have taken up the challenge of staging his problematic, rewarding texts, and Foreman's work remains under-explored by other practitioners.
Richard Foreman: An American (Partly) in Paris argues that Foreman can productively be viewed as a (partly) European artist, whose thinking and theatre-making have been radically shaped by contact with Europe. Through a detailed account of his European productions, interviews with Foreman himself, a set of practical strategies for staging the plays and the full text of Foreman's previously unpublished play Georges Bataille´s Bathrobe (1983), Neal Swettenham introduces the director´s work to a new generation of readers and theatre-makers.
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Includes the full text of a previously unpublished Foreman play - George Bataille's Bathrobe - along with staging notes
Features interviews with Foreman himself, reflecting on his work - key primary material
Having Foreman's contribution throughout the book itself is a unique element among books on this subject
ForewordIntroduction
PART I
1 An American in Paris
Classical Therapy sous l´influence de...ou Thérapie
Livre des Splendeurs
2 O. H. Theatre
Place + Target
Café Amérique
Faustus ou La fête électrique
Die Fledermaus
3 An awkward ugly American
La Robe de Chambre de Georges Bataille
Birth of the Poet
Ma Vie, Ma Mort
Africanus Instructus
Love and Science
Don Giovanni
4 On the road
Permanent Brain Damage
Pearls For Pigs
Hotel Fuck
Bad Boy Nietzsche!
Now That Communism Is Dead My Life Feels Empty!
Panic! (How to Be Happy!)
The Bridge Project
PART II
5 Foreman´s unbalancing acts
What is drama for?
The manifestos
Postdramatic theatre
Staging the texts
6 Cracking the code
Directorial strategies
The actor´s task
Scenography
A critical question
7 Staging and Subjectivity
In the rehearsal room
The inevitability of failure
Film is evil...
...Radio is good
Hysterical
Scenography revisited
Wake up!
Todo Con Nada
PART III
Georges Bataille´s Bathrobe (La Robe de Chambre de Georges Bataille)
Afterword
Richard Foreman has been creating avant-garde theatre in New York since founding his Ontological Hysteric company in 1968. Richard Foreman: An American (Partly) in Paris argues that Foreman can productively be viewed as a (partly) European artist, whose thinking and theatre-making have been radically shaped by contact with Europe.
