Founder of Avant-Garde Theater Tackles a New Scene

Letizia Mariotti for The New York Times Reflection of Judith Malina in the mirror of her room at Lillian Booth Actors Home, an assisted living and skilled nursing care facility in Englewood, N.J. Ms. Malina moved there after losing the lease on her theater on the Lower East Side. She lived in a space above the theater.  

“I couldn’t pay the rent,” said Judith Malina, 87, the artistic director and co-founder of The Living Theatre, explaining why a year ago she lost the site of her Lower East Side theater company and the commercial space above it, where she had lived for six years.

She had lost leases before during her long life in independent theater. This time was different.

“I was crying, screaming,” she said, about leaving her neighborhood. “They had to carry me to the car.”

Her son, Garrick Beck, 64, and a few of the actors in her company, helped her move into a place she never expected to be: The Lillian Booth Actors Home, an assisted living and skilled nursing care facility on a former estate in Englewood, N.J.

“I still haven’t fully adapted to being here,” she said about the home, which includes former actors, writers, and stagehands. “I’m restless. I’m too impatient to sleep.” Yet, the move has galvanized her: An actress and playwright, Ms. Malina has been writing and is making plans to direct new work.

Ms. Malina was born in Germany, and her father was a rabbi. At 7, she recited poetry at anti-Nazi rallies in Madison Square Garden. At 21, she started The Living Theatre with her husband, Julian Beck. The experimental company â€" dedicated to political change â€" removed the wall between performers and audience, and celebrated nonviolence and anarchy in works like “Paradise Now” and “Eureka!”

Ms. Malina is revered as a longtime maverick â€" she has received five Obies â€" and as a generous supporter of the off-off Broadway community. She has nurtured generations of actors and activists, including Martin Sheen, who began his career at The Living Theatre in 1960. She has appeared in films, including “Enemies, A Love Story” and “Dog Day Afternoon,” and on TV series, such as “The Sopranos.” Recently, she was the subject of “Love and Politics,” a documentary by Azad Jafarian.

Her domestic life was untraditional. She had an open marriage with Mr. Beck, with whom she had two children. Following Mr. Beck’s death in 1985, she became co-artistic director with Hanon Reznikov, a company veteran, who’d been her lover. They married in 1988, and lead the company together until his death in 2008, at 57.

She has mixed feelings about her new home. “I’m more comfortable,” admitted Ms. Malina, who has emphysema. “The people here are very good to me. There’s nobody here I wouldn’t call a friend.”
And she enjoys the serenity of the grounds. “This is my favorite spot,” she said, sitting in her wheelchair, facing a pond. “I come out here two or three times a day.”

But “I miss the Lower East Side,” she said, “primarily the people, the creativity. It’s where everything that’s good started,” she added, referring to its history of supporting progressive movements. “If there’s going to be a beautiful, nonviolent revolution, it’s going to start there.”

She’s still connected to her old life. Living Theatre actors “visit her almost every day,” said Brad Burgess, 28, the company’s executive producer. The troupe is negotiating a residency at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center on Suffolk Street in Manhattan. This spring, they’re planning to debut workshops of “No Place to Hide,” a new play by Ms. Malina, which she’ll direct.

She travels to Manhattan once a week. “I like to see what my colleagues are doing,” she said.

But these visits aren’t enough: “I feel very exiled, abandoned,” she said. When rehearsals on her new play start, “I’ll be more a New Yorker.”

In her room, she writes in spurts throughout the day and night. “She doesn’t take time to relax,” Mr. Burgess said, “and she gets annoyed by people who do.”

She writes frequently her diary as she has for almost 70 years. “The Diaries of Judith Malina, 1947-57″ (Grove Press, 1984) features special moments â€" her son’s birth, her affair with James Agee. “That was a fun book,” she said. “I’ve had a fun life.” In 2008, Yale University acquired hundreds of her diaries. “I’ve kept a hundred,” she said, pointing to a stuffed burgundy valise.

She’s not a reclusive artist. “This is my social room,” she said about a salon at the nursing home, where she attends readings and concerts. She’s planning to stage a new play there, about aging. It will be performed by residents. “I want everyone in it to talk about their own experiences, about how we change for the better,” she said.

Recently, Mr. Burgess wheeled her down a hallway hung with old movie posters toward dinner, served at 5 p.m. “It drives me crazy - I’m not hungry” she said, good-naturedly. “I’m used to eating after the show.” She stopped to speak with Gene Feis tâ€" co-founder of the Roundabout Theatre Company. In the dining room, she greeted her tablemate, Marilyn McDonald, a former actress.

Ms. Malina poured herself a cup of coffee. “Judith will have a couple of bites of potato,” Mr. Burgess said, “and wait for the ice cream to come.”

She holds onto a hope: “I want to see the beautiful, nonviolent revolution before I leave,” she said. “If I could be in New York, I could do more.”