Richard Foreman: Pandering to the Masses, Part 2

The following is the second part of an interview led by Charles Ruas with the avant-garde playwright, Richard Foreman. The two discuss the writer's interest in space as a creative tool; for him, the stage is a machine, informing the play as much as an actor might. Foreman aims to establish arbitrary absolutes between objects. His goal is to awaken the viewer into another state of consciousness. Simultaneous to this discussion, excerpts of his piece Pandering to the Masses: A Misrepresentation, is played.

American avant-garde theater pioneer, Richard Foreman (b. 1937), founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in 1968, a project which has since been co-produced by such organizations as The New York Shakespeare Festival, La Mama, The Wooster Group and the Festival d'Autumn in Paris and the Vienna Festival. The theater is currently located in New York City's St. Mark's Church, off the Bowery. Foreman has received the annual Literature award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, a "Lifetime Achievement in the Theater" award from the National Endowment for the Arts, the PEN Club Master American Dramatist Award, a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship, and in 2004 was elected officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France.