Julian Beck’s Final Performance: Beckett & Facing Mortality | American Theatre
Julian Beck, a towering figure of the avant-garde American theater, found himself in a poignant and unexpected position in the final year of his life: widely celebrated not for the radical works he created, but for his masterful performances in the works of others. Battling cancer, Beck delivered a final, haunting performance in Samuel Beckett’s That Time at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Company in , a production that, according to writer Karen Malpede, brought together three luminaries of the experimental stage – Beck, George Bartenieff, and Fred Neumann.
Malpede, in a recent reflection on Beck’s final performances, describes the production as a “significant event,” showcasing Beckett’s short plays with a cast uniquely suited to their demands. That Time, in particular, offered Beck a role that seemed almost written for him. Beckett’s stage direction paints a spectral figure: “Old white face, long flaring white hair, as if seen from above, outspread. Voice A, B, C are his own coming to him from both sides and above.” Beck, his body weakened by illness, embodied this description with a chilling precision. He was, Malpede writes, “a spectral image, speaking in three different voices, each one himself.”
The staging itself was stark and symbolic. Beck leaned against a slanted black platform, his feet barely touching a ledge, appearing to float in the darkness, illuminated only by a focused light on his face. He delivered Beckett’s lines, pre-recorded and meticulously edited to remove even the sound of his weakening body – his “hiccups edited out” – reciting the play’s haunting refrain: “that time you went back, that first time to look was the ruin still there where you hid as a child.” Malpede emphasizes that Beck didn’t simply recite the words. he “acted the emotions with his beautiful, ravished face while the tape of his three different voices played,” creating a performance of profound emotional resonance.
This final foray into Beckett’s work came after a period of critical disappointment. Beck’s own creation, The Archeology of Sleep, funded by the French government and initially praised in Nantes, had been harshly received by New York critics upon the Living Theatre’s return to the city. Despite this setback, Beck continued to work, finding recognition in roles that allowed him to showcase his formidable talent as a performer.
Beck’s final year saw him embrace a range of roles in film and television, often portraying villains. He appeared as the maniacal Reverend Kane in ’s Poltergeist II: The Other Side (posthumously, as he passed away in ), a gangster in The Cotton Club, and a villainous banker in Miami Vice. Malpede notes that Beck strategically took on these roles, driven by a desire to secure financial stability for Judith Malina and Hanon Reznikov, his collaborators in the Living Theatre, ensuring its continuation after his death.
Malpede’s account delves into the thematic resonance between Beck’s life and Beckett’s work, suggesting that Beckett’s plays, particularly That Time, captured the unspoken trauma of a generation scarred by World War II. The play’s repeated question – “that time, that time” – evokes a sense of fragmented memory and the difficulty of articulating profound, often horrific, experiences. Beckett, Malpede argues, found a way to express the “nightmare annihilation for which we have no words,” a sentiment echoed in the silent suffering of those who lived through the war.
Beck’s own pacifist stance, and his avoidance of the draft by openly identifying as homosexual, created an interesting counterpoint to Beckett’s exploration of trauma. Malpede notes that Beck himself felt a disconnect from Beckett’s worldview, yet recognized a shared artistic sensibility – a willingness to push boundaries and explore the extreme, the unknown, and the liminal spaces between understanding and confusion. Both, she writes, “gravitated to the extreme, the unknown, the leap, or, in Beckett’s case, fall, or pratfall, the confusion that masks the forgotten essential event.”
The final months of Beck’s life were marked by a paradoxical sense of vitality. Despite his failing health, he remained creatively engaged, completing his final book, Theandric, while hospitalized. Malpede describes him as “exalted” and “always on the verge of wish fulfillment,” a man looking forward even as he faced his own mortality. He was surrounded by a community of artists and friends who, as Malpede puts it, “understood our privileged place” and were committed to continuing his work after his passing.
That Time, then, becomes more than just a performance; it’s a testament to Beck’s enduring spirit and his ability to find meaning and beauty even in the face of death. It was a final act of transformation, a culmination of a life dedicated to challenging conventions and exploring the depths of the human condition.