Richard Foreman interviewed by Tim Scott and Molly Gillis
Richard Foreman is a theatre and film director, who has pioneered his vision of the avant-garde. He writes and designs his own work, which he refers to as "total theatre," which aims to unite the elements of performative, auditory, literary and visual arts, as well as psychoanalysis and philosophy. He founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre [1968] to showcase the work of young experimental artists, as well as his own. Richard, for years, has been making his audiences re-evaluate what the driving force behind art and theatre is. He has written, directed and designed over fifty of his own plays, both in New York City and abroad. Today, Richard still lives in New York and is working on a number of new projects, namely Old-Fashioned Prostitutes for The Public Theatre.
Where do the images in your work come from?
For the plays, basically from imagining what kind of set can be in that space. It doesn’t come from any place except me.
Do you feel like there is a process you take to form these or elongate them?
No, once I set up the space, it sort of comes automatically. Well that’s the only answer, yeah. To respond to the space.
Do you find it helpful when you’re looking at other images for inspiration?
For film, yes, but not for the plays.
How do you know when something is right?
It just clicks. Obviously there are things that I thought were right and then two days later, three days later, they don't seem right--they wear out. And I always remember when I was going to see the theatre a lot, often I would see things that I wasn’t sure I liked and I could always tell, if it was really good, I felt tension right here in the solar plexus. And I always trusted that. Basically, I sort of fuzz my mind, try to be sort of a blank, and try not to have any pre-expectations. But just look at something that seems right, and not too stupid.
It seems like alchemy to us, the way you start with something and keep altering it and altering it.
In the early days, alchemy was one of the things I thought about a lot that would justify what I was doing.
How would you describe your relationship between change, repetition, and stasis?
I can’t answer that. I don’t think about that. Ever. I just think about, again, what doesn’t seem stupid. Now in Daniel Goldenstein, that was a special situation because there were no lines assigned obviously, no characters. I just had to use and try to give equal things to everybody. But that’s all I thought about.
Is there one particular challenge that arises with each project or does every project present new challenges for you?
Well they’re different. I always try to do- Let me put it this way: every time I always think it’s gonna be a lot different than the preceding style. I first think, this play is gonna be different. Now I was forced to make it different at NYU because they didn’t have a lot of scenery. And that was good. But, I always try to do something I think will get me in trouble or that I think I don’t know how to do. That’s one of the basic considerations when I choose material. Then I realize when we get into rehearsal, hey, you know what it is, it’s just reinventing the wheel. I’ve invented it before, but I forgot. And I’m reinventing the wheel.
What’s the challenge with the current project you’re developing for the Public?
Two things. I did a workshop this summer for a month. And it’s gonna be a real challenge not to just repeat what we did in the workshop because the actors here, except for the leading lady, are all different. And I know it’s going to be hard to escape the memory of the solutions at Baryshnikov. That was a big challenge. There are different challenges here. The sightlines in the Martinson are bad, as far as I’m concerned. So the stage is lifted 4 ft. off the ground, which means people 1/3 of the way through are going to be sort of looking up, which I don’t particularly like, but I want everybody to see everything. And dealing with that and dealing with how that might change the staging is a challenge.
Do the specific actors you are working with change your play when you get into rehearsals?
Oh yeah.
Have the qualities that you like in performers changed over the course of your career?
No, I doubt that will change.
Is there a specific relationship between the characters/speakers that you write in your plays and you? Has that changed over your career?
Well no, the voice is sort of half me. So it isn’t that different. I mean, it changes with different performers. But no, I don’t feel it changes too much. I just want to stage the language. And then there happens to be people speaking that language, so I have to adapt to that. But I’m more interested in hearing the language than I am in following a character and his intentions.
What is your editing process like when creating text?
Well, I write text…in the old days, my rule was you don’t change it because then you’re lying about what you’re impulse was when you wrote it. Now, as you know from rehearsals, I change everything. And I do that also when I’m getting ready for a performance. I’ll rewrite it 5 or 6, sometimes 10 times as I’m thinking about the performance. Now this play now is sort of different because we’ve done it, so I’m pretty satisfied with the text. I don’t know, I don’t expect to change the text too much, but I might.
Do you ever try to convey any certain spiritual ideas in your plays?
Well I know that I do because those are my concerns. But, I don’t consciously try to do that.
It’s an exploration for yourself?
Oh yeah.
Is there any sort of mystical material that inspires you?
Oh, everything. I’ve read everything. Lately, since the time I started working with you, did I ever mention a book by Peter Kingsley called “Reality”? That has been very influential.
How long did it take you to digest that book? That is a huge book.
Well I’m a fast reader, so the first time I read it, it didn’t take very long at all. A couple of days at most. But I’ve been reading it again ever since and I force myself to stop after 2 pages. No, 2 chapters.
Where do you see yourself fitting in with different works, like Peter Kingsley’s “Reality”? Are you responding to them?
Yeah, I’m responding to them. I’m not trying to adapt them. And I’m not trying to remember them specifically when I’m working creatively. But I know that I’ve been influenced, by this book especially, because I already was oriented in that sort of way. But what it means is that lately, for the past couple of years…more and more, I know it’s not commercial, and I shouldn’t tell people, but I’m thinking that I don’t want a theatre that goes for effects, that goes for excitement. I want to do something that is on a different level than that.
Right, well personally, I feel like that's what I'm wondering, "why theatre?" Now that I'm out of school, it seems like such a hard medium to work in.
Well, I've always hated the theatre in many ways. I've never made a secret to that. But yeah, I'm ambivalent to the theatre to say the least.
It's hard to book space, it's expensive.
Oh! That's something else.
The people that go to see theatre are of a very certain type.
Oh that's true, yeah. Even at the public they charge much to much. There are student rush tickets and I'm mostly interested in those people [students] and they have to sit in the back usually, which isn't great.
Who makes up your ideal audience, do you think?
Oh I don't like to think about that--people who like my plays, that's my ideal audience. I mean it's limited, that limits my audience.
In talking about how things have changed, in the way theatre is done in New York with the prices and the space, I mean and I'm sure you have experienced this too, what is the biggest difference from making work twenty years ago to today?
Not much difference for me. I mean I may have evolved as an artist, but not in terms of audiences changing or anything like that, because I always had some people who were very positive about my work and a large group of people who just thought I was a fraud and hated it and I think that time has maybe limited some of those people from seeing the plays but the people who feel that way, the regular subscription audiences at the public, a lot of the people really don't know what they're getting into and see it and hate it. No, I have very dedicated people, but I also have people who hate it.
Has your process changed depending on where you were making work? From when you were in Paris, Italy or New York?
No, not really, because all around the world there's the same group of people who are interested in that kind of theatre and it's not that different.
We wanted to ask you about your thoughts on New York and Paris…
I hate New York. I always have.
Well there's a lot of people now saying that young artists should get out of New York.
Well, I hate America, but [laughing] Paris I loved. It's not the same Paris that it used to be. But, I like Europe better than America.
What does it offer that America does not?
Just an atmosphere. Just, you know, more interesting architecture. More interesting food, uh, but just the ambience of people who are differently oriented. You know, as far as I'm concerned all the cliches that say Frenchmen might have about America are pretty true. Now they recognize also that America has produced some pretty great art, but uh, just to live, you know daily living, I find oppressive here and I don't find it in Europe.
Do you feel like your drive to make theatre has changed over the course of your career or is it still sort of the same?
I'm not certain how strong that drive is, it's like I'm not sure what else to do. I mean I'm making films now, but uh, sitting here alone and editing films for a year and a half is not the answer.
What can you accomplish better in one versus the other?
Nothing, I just like, you know, everything available to read--I never read books about the theatre--a lot of film books are very interesting. And uh, certain films, well films are beginning to wear out for me too, but for a long time they were much more interesting aesthetically to me. Sort of advanced films, you know, European art films things like that, much more than the theatre. I mean I've hated always most of what I saw in the theatre.
I saw the Jack Smith exhibit at P.S. 1 a few months ago. They were screening his movies and it's such a different experience seeing movies like that, especially with the public--you know people who are not yourself. It's very different, I think.
Well, you know, I grew up with underground films, around those people, and nowadays, you know, I'm not that interested in that, but I'm still interested in Advanced European so-called art films, which are getting more and more difficult for them to make, also. And fewer are being made, but I still see some great things.
Is there a method you have for recognizing when or what your next work is going to be?
No.
No?
And I don't know how many more plays I have in me, frankly.
When did this most recent project [Old-Fashioned Prostitutes] become clear, or that you wanted to work on it?
For the public? I just decided,you know, that I wanted to get back into theatre, after officially giving it up. So I did the two projects at NYU and then I realized that, well pretty much the only place that's open to me at this point is The Public. And Oscar knows me, and knows my work and likes it a lot, but I thought I needed a play that would be appropriate for The Public. So, I found, as usual, old material and submitted it to The Public.
Do you think technology, the way that it's moving, is going to change the way that our perceptions of art and how we view art, the space even, in which we view art?
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I'm not sure I like it. It's also a dumbing down in a certain sense. You know, because advanced films are not being made anymore, I mean it's harder and harder, and commercial films and all the commercial crap--I mean every once in a while theres' something good, but it's really dumbing down the population.
Do you think it has given people more access to your work at all?
What, film?
Yes, or even the internet? People being able to see, or view, or read?
Maybe, but I don't know. I mean, I spend a lot of time online, but I'm dubious about the effects. I wrote an article that got picked up by surprisingly a lot of people--Did I mention pancake people?
No, you didn't mention that.
I wrote something about how, you know, media and the internet and things like that…instead of being vertical people with a great background, and carried with them all this information and being evolved. Now that...because everything is at our finger tips we're losing that vertical aspect and now you just get pancake people and it's just this, this, this and it's just made for flat people. I believe that very much.
I feel like I can see that in myself, and I hate that.
I can see it in me more, too.
Is there anything you wish you could have known early in your career that you know now, or are you happy with the trajectory of your career?
I mean, I forget everything, I don't remember.
What was the greatest part of your training?
I was fortunate..I didn't like my college experience or my graduate school experience very much, but at Brown I had one great teacher. Who introduced me really to serious European thought and at Brown I had a playwriting teacher who used to be the literary manager of the The Theatre Guild, I don't know if you know what that is, but it used to be the big producing organization. He was so great about analyzing your plays...not so much, he didn't criticize them so much, he would just talk you through them inch by inch and tell you what he thought was happening in them. And he was very good, he was the smartest person I've ever met, about theatre.
It was very much a teaching environment when you were at NYU, working with us. Did you feel that at all?
It's sort of that way all the time, I feel. I feel you both have to be psychoanalyst, a psychiatrist, and a sort of teacher.
What was the biggest challenge of working with students?
Oh, I don't know. I don't think of students any differently. I mean, I work with mostly young people in my plays, but I don't see any real difference. Some have talent and some don't. You know, I don't know…Oh, I shouldn't say that because talent is a funny thing. Like when I'm doing movies, we went to these places and they provided the actors, no casting. And invariably, we'd start work and I'd think, "Oh my god, that girl is terrible. How can I use her." Then in the end, that person, often times, would turn out to be the strongest person on the film, at least.
Do you think that's because your work tends to bring out, at least in Daniel Goldenstein, it brought out a piece of each of us?
Well, that's what I like to think I'm doing and in a way that's easier--You know if you have a very experienced actor sometimes there's more resistance to be manipulated in that way.
Have you ever felt unsafe making your work, or do you always feel in control?
Well I often feel, up to closing minutes, unsafe in the sense that I think, "Oh, this is going to be embarrassing. This is stupid and terrible ." So often times I go through that, yeah. But like, I don't know if you saw the other play I did at NYU, but everyone had these accents and that was because, I didn't think they could…you know this play was written for very sophisticated French people and I didn't think they could convince me of that so I thought "well, no, they're all immigrants and they're sort of bumbling in French".
So, why have you stuck around theatre so long?
Well, it's what I grew up in and it's what I do. What else am I gonna do? Some people keep saying I should be a painter…and well, I just don't know. And obviously novels…it's too much work writing novels, I couldn't do that…so what else am I going to do?
You have never painted anything before?
Well, I paint a lot. Lots of my sets have paintings by me in them. But, when I was young, that was my first manifested talent. You know, to draw and to paint, when I was very young. But, I don't think I'm good enough. I mean, people who don't know that much think I'm good, but I'm not really good.