Living with the living theatre pays tribute to Judith Malina and Julien Beck, the founders of Living Theatre, but with a unique focus, since the video does not evoke their experimental theatre, but their family life. While they have both advocated lifestyles that are outside the norm, with very definite and controversial politic and artistic ideals, the interview conducted by Nam June Paik with these personalities of Living Theatre relates to the way in which they bring up their two children. With humour and doubts, they confront their anarchic position with the reality of daily life, deepening the relationship between theatre and life. Judith Malina stresses the difficulty she has in talking about this family history, whereas they are perfectly capable of talking at length about their artistic activities.

With his characteristic collage technique, using inlays and image manipulation, Nam June Paik combines all sorts of sources, making connections between the various moments of their past and poetic animations by Betsy Connors [1]. When they evoke their difficulties with censorship, Nam June Paik shows extracts of the play The Brig, shot in 1963 by Jonas Mekas, which gave rise to their exile for many long years. But he also includes images from Janis Joplin concerts or images of the Beck-Malina family. We see for instance Judith Malina collapsing at Julien Beck’s funeral, who died in 1985 of stomach cancer. This combination of period footage and the characteristic style of Nam June Paik’s work takes on a particularly moving dimension in the portrait of Julian Beck, visibly ill and old, despite his radiant smile at the time of the interview, shown in parallel with archives of his performances at the peak of his powers in the 1960s.

Living with the Living Theatre is a sensitive portrait born out of their hesitations, laughter, and crises and using a proliferation of images and references that is the hallmark of the video maker’s style.

Patricia Maincent

[1] American artist Betsy Connors works with photography, video, and holography.