Harold Clurman

Harold Edgar Clurman (September 18, 1901 – September 9, 1980) was a visionary American theatre director and drama critic, most famous for being one of the three original founders of the New York City's Group Theatre. He was drama critic for The New Republic (1948–52) and The Nation (1953–1980) and he wrote a chronicle of the Group Theatre's inception and the attempt to make art within America's marketplace culture called The Fervent Years.

Clurman was born in New York City. He was Jewish,^[1] and according to Lulla Rosenfeld, his interest in theater was first inspired by Yiddish theater, in particular Jacob Adler's performances in Yiddish translations of Karl Gutzkow's Uriel Acosta and Lessing's Nathan the Wise. [Adler, 1999, 333 (commentary)].

He was the second husband of Jacob Adler's daughter Stella Adler, a charismatic theatre actress and later a renowned New York acting coach, like him a member of the Group Theatre. They married in 1940 and divorced in 1960.

At the age of twenty Harold moved to Paris, where he shared an apartment with composer Aaron Copland. In Paris, he saw all sorts of theatrical productions, and was especially influenced by the work of Jacques Copeau and the Moscow Art Theatre. Clurman returned to New York in 1924 and found work as an extra in plays, then became a stage manager and play reader for the Theatre Guild. He briefly studied Stanislavsky’s system under the tutelage of Richard Boleslavsky (Carnickle 39) and became Jacques Copeau's translator/assistant on his production of "The Brothers Karamazov."

Clurman began to realize that the standard American theatre, though successful at the box office (Smith 4), was not providing the captivating experience that he wanted (Smith 11). Together with the like-minded Cheryl Crawford and Lee Strasberg, he began to create what would become the Group Theatre. In November 1930, Clurman began leading group discussions, describing his desire to found a permanent theatrical company that would produce plays dealing with important modern issues.

In the summer of 1931, the first members of the Group Theatre rehearsed for several weeks in the countryside at the Pinebrook Lake Association in Connecticut ^[2] to prepare for their first production, The House of Connelly by Paul Green, directed by Strasberg. Clurman was the scholar of the group--he knew multiple languages, read widely, and listened to a broad array of music (Smith 16) while Strasberg dealt with acting and directing and Crawford dealt with the business side of things.

Clurman directed his first play for the Group Theatre, Awake and Sing! by Clifford Odets, in 1935. The play was a great success and led Clurman to develop his directing style. He believed that all the elements of a play--text, acting, lighting, scenery and direction--needed to work together to convey a unified message. Clurman would read the script over and over, each time focusing on a different element or character ("On Directing 74"). He would attempt to inspire, guide and constructively critique his designers, rather than dictate to them (“On Directing” 54). He would also use Richard Boleslavsky's technique of identifying the "spine," or main action, of each character, then using those to determine the spine of the play ("On Directing" 74). He encouraged his actors to find "active verbs" to describe what their characters were trying to accomplish ("On Directing 28"). He believed that Stanislavsky's system was good to know and study, but too time-consuming to use fully.

In 1937, tensions between Clurman, Crawford and Strasberg caused the latter two to resign from the Group; four years later, the Group Theatre permanently disbanded. Clurman went on to direct plays on Broadway and work as a newspaper theatre critic (Smith 422).

Celebrated actress and acting teacher Uta Hagen credits Clurman with the initial turn-around in her perspective on acting in her best-selling text Respect for Acting, summing up his approach in his demand for the human being within the character: "In 1947, I worked in a play under the direction of Harold Clurman. He opened a new world in the professional theatre for me. He took away my 'tricks.' He imposed no line readings, no gestures, no positions on the actors. At first I floundered badly because for may years I had become accustomed to using specific outer directions as the material from which to construct the mask for my character, the mask behind which I would hide throughout the performance. Mr Clurman refused to accept a mask. He demanded ME in the role. My love of acting was slowly reawakened as I began to deal with a strange new technique of evolving in the character. I was not allowed to begin with, or concern myself at any time with, a preconceived form. I was assured that a form would result from the work we were doing."

Work on Broadway

Note = All works are plays and are the original productions unless otherwise noted.

• Caesar and Cleopatra (1925) (revival) - Actor
• The Goat Song (1926) - Actor
• The Chief Thing (1926) - Actor
• Juarez and Maximilian (1926) - Actor
• Night Over Taos (1932) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Big Night (1933) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Men in White (1934) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Awake and Sing! (1935) - Director, Produced by The Group Theater
• Waiting for Lefty (1935) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Till the Day I Die (1935) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Weep for the Virgins (1935) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Paradise Lost (1935) - Director, Produced by The Group Theater
• Case of Clyde Griffiths (1936) - Co-produced by The Group Theater
• Johnny Johnson (1936) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Golden Boy (1937) - Director, Produced by The Group Theater
• Casey Jones (1938) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Rocket to the Moon (1938) - Director, Produced by The Group Theater
• The Gentle People (1939) - Director, Produced by The Group Theater
• Awake and Sing! (1939) (revival) - Director, Produced by The Group Theater
• My Heart's in the Highlands (1939) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Thunder Rock (1939) - Produced by The Group Theater
• Night Music (1940) - Director, Produced by The Group Theater
• Retreat to Pleasure (1940) - Director
• The Russian People (1942) - Director
• Beggars Are Coming to Town (1945) - Director
• Truckline Cafe (1946) - Director and Co-producer
• All My Sons (1947) - Co-producer
• The Whole World Over (1947) - Director
• The Young and Fair (1948) - Director
• The Member of the Wedding (1950) - Director
• The Bird Cage (1950) - Director
• The Autumn Garden (1951) - Director
• Desire Under the Elms (1952) (revival) - Director
• The Time of the Cuckoo (1953) - Director
• The Emperor's Clothes (1953) - Director
• The Ladies of the Corridor (1953) - Director
• Mademoiselle Colombe (1954) - Director
• Bus Stop (1955) - Director - Tony Nomination for Best Director
• Tiger at the Gates (1955) - Director - Tony Nomination for Best Director
• Pipe Dream (1955) (musical) - Director - Tony Nomination for Best Director
• The Waltz of the Toreadors (1957) - Director - Tony Nomination for Best Director
• Orpheus Descending (1957) - Director
• The Day the Money Stopped (1958) - Director
• The Waltz of the Toreadors (1958) (revival) - Director
• A Touch of the Poet (1958) - Director
• The Cold Wind and the Warm (1958) - Director
• Heartbreak House (1959) - (revival) - Director
• A Shot in the Dark (1961) - Director
• After the Fall, The Changeling, Incident at Vichy, and Tartuffe (all played in repertory) (1964-1965) - Executive Consultant to the producer, Repertory Theater of Lincoln Center
• Where's Daddy? (1966) - Director

Notes

References

• Harold Clurman on Spartacus Schoolnet, retrieved February 26, 2005.
• Adler, Jacob, A Life on the Stage: A Memoir, translated and with commentary by Lulla Rosenfeld, Knopf, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-679-41351-0.
• Harold Clurman at the Internet Broadway Database
• Carnicke, Sharon. Stanislavsky in Focus. Cornwall: TJ International Ltd, 2003.

• Clurman, Harold. All People Are Famous (instead of an autobiography). New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1974.

• Clurman, Harold. The Fervent Years. USA: The Colonial Press Inc., 1961

• Clurman, Harold. Ibsen. Hong Kong: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1978.

• Clurman, Harold. On Directing. New York, Mcmillan Publishing Co. Inc., 1974.

• "Clurman, Harold." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2 October 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024476>.

• Smith, Wendy. Real Life Drama: The Group Theatre and America, 1931-1940. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1990.

External links

• Harold Clurman, American Masters, Public Broadcasting Service PBS
• Harold Clurman Collection at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
• Opinion Born of Experience, Harold Clurman as a writer and critic by Terry Teachout.