Richard Foreman – författare

A unique concept frames Richard Foreman’s ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’, a collection of short stories from Lepus Books.  In each of these thirty-four tales the author takes a word, phrase or saying, twisting it into a new meaning, and by extension a new reality.  The stories that emerge extend across a diverse stylistic range through sci-fi, adventure, crime, romance, horror, folk tale and magic realism. The many worlds of ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’ can be rampantly surrealistic at times, not so very different from our own at others.  A ‘parapet’ becomes a beast assigned as a familiar to would-be mystics.  If you go out and ‘stretch your legs’ you come home taller.  ‘Accolade’ is a drink that gives you a pat on the back.  But in each tale, readers will meet engaging characters in intriguing situations - some humorous, some perilous, some with deep emotional resonance. 

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Richard Foreman has been at the leading edge of the theatrical avant-garde in the United States and throughout the world since 1968. His legendary productions, written and directed by him at his Ontological-Hysteric Theatre have influenced two generations of theater artists. This new anthology collects plays written and performed over six years, including Now That Communism Is Dead My Life Feels Empty, Maria del Bosco, Panic (How to Be Happy!), Bad Boy Nietzsche!, Bad Behavior and King Cowboy Rufus Rules the Universe.

Richard Foreman founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theatre in 1968. The theater is currently in the historic St. Marks Church, where he rehearses and produces one of his new plays each year, each play performing for 16 weeks every winter.

“There’s an irresistible joy to reading these plays…examining them at leisure without the urgent propulsive forward movement of the theater, reveals beauties and resonances uniquely literary.” —Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director, The Public Theater, from his foreword

Plays for The Public includes:

The Gods Are Pounding My Head! (AKA Lumberjack Messiah)

“Richard Foreman is the ultimate theater auteur and mind-roiling warlock of avant-garde drama… Gods is an extravaganza of tightly orchestrated hallucinogenic visual effects, bruising slapstick and intense, cryptic lines… It is majestically mad and funny.” —New York Times

Idiot Savant

“Vintage Foreman: ravishing, perplexing, scary, a sensual and intellectual message for those weary of causality and psychology.” —Time Out New York

Old-Fashioned Prostitutes

“What makes Mr. Foreman’s work so entertaining is his ability to turn these classic, head-scratching concerns into phantasmagorical vaudevilles in which all the world’s a stage that keeps changing shape on you… Mr. Foreman is a grandmaster.” —New York Times

This volume features the two plays sumptuously produced at The Public Theater in New York City that mark the culmination of Richard Foreman’s unstintingly inventive, astonishing career in theater, just as he was beginning to devote his creative energies entirely to filmmaking.

Includes essays and playscripts: The Cure, Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good, Symphony of Rats, What Did He See? and Lava. Foreword by Peter Sellars

"Richard Foreman reinvented dialogue, action, sound, stage design, and philosophical groundwork as no other stage artist in our history."—PEN/Laura Pels Master American Dramatist Award citation

During the forty-five years Richard Foreman has been staging his wildly inventive work, he has been wrestling with the basic question of "What is art?" This book collects his writings on the subject, from his early manifestos through his recent transition to film, and provides a fascinating window into this singular artist's mind and creative process.

Richard Foreman has written, directed, and designed more than fifty of his own plays, both internationally and at his Ontological-Hysteric Theater, which he founded in 1968. He has received many OBIE awards, an NEA Lifetime Achievement Award, and a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship.