The Life of the Theatre by Julian Beck
julian beck the life of the theatre the relation of the artist to the struggle of the people foreword by Judith Malina Foreword to The Life of the Theatre “ Death is corruption and is not intrinsic to life.” I cannot contend against this contradiction. Julian Beck, whose banner was the conquest of death by the awakening of the people’s revolutionary spirit through the struggle of the artist, loved to quote this uncompromising declaration by the prophet-philosopher Eric Gutkind. At this writing the philosopher Gutkind is dead many years and Julian Beck only a few months. What speaks for them—after the victory of corruption, that is, death—are the immortal words, and would Eurydice have harrowed hell had Orpheus died? But no, he could not die, because the uncorrupted message makes its way to us, full of enigmas (for therein lies the poetry), through endless vistas charged with locks and doors and keys. “ The manufacture of keys is the work of the artist,” s...