Charles Marowitz (26 January 1934 – 2 May 2014) was an American

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or gover ...

theatre director A theatre director or stage director is a professional in the theatre field who oversees and orchestrates the mounting of a theatre production such as a play, opera, dance, drama, musical theatre performance, etc. by unifying various endeavors a ...

, and

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

, regular columnist on Swans Commentary. He collaborated with

Peter Brook Peter Stephen Paul Brook (21 March 1925 – 2 July 2022) was an English theatre and film director. He worked first in England, from 1945 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, from 1947 at the Royal Opera House, and from 1962 for the Royal Sha ...

at the

Royal Shakespeare Company The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, St ...

, and later founded and directed The Open Space Theatre in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He is also the co-founder of ''

Encore An encore is an additional performance given by performers after the planned show has ended, usually in response to extended applause from the audience.Lalange Cochrane, in ''Oxford Companion to Music'', Alison Latham, ed., Oxford University Pre ...

'' magazine which was published between 1954 and 1965, and co-editor of ''The'' Encore ''Reader: A Chronicle of the New Drama'' (1965). He was a regular contributor to publications such as ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' (London), ''

TheaterWeek ''TheaterWeek'' was a favorite magazine among theater artists and theater lovers. It covered Broadway, off-Broadway, regional, and educational theater with articles that included profiles of actors, directors, designers and behind-the-scenes looks ...

'', and ''

American Theatre Theater in the United States is part of the old European theatrical tradition and has been heavily influenced by the British theater. The central hub of the American theater scene is Manhattan, with its divisions of Broadway, Off-Broadway, and ...

'' and was the lead critic on the ''

Los Angeles Herald-Examiner The ''Los Angeles Herald Examiner'' was a major Los Angeles daily newspaper, published in the afternoon from Monday to Friday and in the morning on Saturdays and Sundays. It was part of the Hearst syndicate. It was formed when the afternoon ' ...

'' until it ceased publication. He was the author of ''Murdering Marlowe'', which imagines a rivalry between

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

and

Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe, also known as Kit Marlowe (; baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), was an English playwright, poet and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the Elizabethan playwrights. Based upon t ...

, which was selected as a finalist for the

GLAAD Media Awards The GLAAD Media Award is an accolade bestowed by GLAAD to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, Bisexuality, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and the issues that affe ...

of 2002, and of the 1987

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

play '' Sherlock's Last Case'' with

Frank Langella Frank A. Langella Jr. (; born January 1, 1938) is an American stage and film actor. He has won four Tony Awards: two for Best Leading Actor in a Play for his performance as Richard Nixon in Peter Morgan's '' Frost/Nixon'' and as André in Flor ...

in the lead role.

Frank Rich Frank Hart Rich Jr. (born 1949) is an American essayist and liberal op-ed columnist, who held various positions within ''The New York Times'' from 1980 to 2011. He has also produced television series and documentaries for HBO. Rich is curren ...

"Stage: Langella In 'Sherlock's Last.' "
''

'', August 21, 1987, accessed October 11, 2007. His free adaptations of Shakespeare have been collected in ''The Marowitz Shakespeare''. He died of complications from

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms beco ...

in 2014 at the age of 80.Elaine Wo
"Charles Marowitz, playwright, director and critic, dies at 80"
''Los Angeles Times'', 6 May 2014

Selected bibliography

*Marowitz, Charles (1977). ''

Artaud Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...

at Rodez''. London: Marion Boyars. . *Marowitz, Charles, ed. and trans. (2000). ''The Marowitz Shakespeare: Adaptions and Collages of Hamlet, MacBeth, the Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and the Merchant of Venice''. London: Marion Boyars. . *–––, Tom Milne, and Owen Hale, eds. (1981). ''The Encore Reader: A Chronice of the New Drama''. London: Methuen, 1965. Reissued as ''New Theatre Voices of the Fifties and Sixties''. London: Eyre Methuen. *Trussler, Simon (2014). Charles Marowitz in London: Twenty-Five Years Hard: Marowitz in the Sixties. New Theatre Quarterly, 30:3, p. 203–206

References

External links

Charles Marowitz Papers
at the

Harry Ransom Center The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...

"Biography: Charles Marowitz"
on ''Marowitz Theatre''. *

– Contributor page at Swans.com. *

' Marowitz's website. 1934 births 2014 deaths 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights Place of birth missing Place of death missing {{US-dramatist-stub