Why Keep Track?

The Diarist is an experimental use of an online blog in an effort to “keep track.”

The Diarist is not a diary. It is an experiment with different media and forms by many different people in an effort to keep track. Judith Malina’s gravestone reads “diarist” because she believed that “keeping track” is both useful and beautiful, but a theatre company cannot keep its own diary. We are experimenting with this platform and launching The Diarist to collectively keep track of the life of The Living.

The Living Theatre needs to be in the online space, but theatre companies cannot contend with the changing culture if we only use digital platforms to sell tickets- we must redefine quality in content on digital platforms as well as those with prosceniums. We must create something useful and beautiful.

the diarists of the Living

To call Judith's devotion and discipline as a diarist aspirational would surely be an understatement - there are well known examples: the Piscator Notebooks, her Full Moon Stages, her 1968-69 diaries in The Enormous Despair, and the large volume of her 1945-1957 diaries, but the published works are only a tiny drop.

Julian was no less diligent in his diarist efforts but his style is distinctive - sometimes the diaries read more like experimental poetry than personal narrative prose. Excerpts from a variety of Julian's journals are published in The Life of the Theatre, How Happy We Were, Theandric, and some of his more poetic songs/meditations from his journals are published in Living in Volkswagon Buses & Other Songs of the Revolution.

Judith and Julian aren’t the only ones in The Living Theatre who were diarists. In his piece, "I Think I'm Still Here: A Personal Memoir of The Living Theatre," published by Performing Arts Journal, Tom Walker, 50 year company member & Living Theatre archivist, gives us a peek into how his 50 years with the company began. Garrick Beck, Judith & Julian’s son, published his personal accounts in True Stories. Another diarist, Michael Townsend Smith, followed The Living Theatre around Europe during the summer of 1965, and the journals he kept throughout are published in his book, Theatre Trip.

There are many more.

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ode to the diarists 

“Notebooks. A trap. The uncollected assorted notes. Notes that never become paragraphs nor poems.” JB

I am a Diarist. I start every journal with the intent to write in it every day and I have never followed all the way thru but it always gets written in. 

I am a Diarist. I write like I’m running out of time because my 4th grade teacher Ms. DuPont said i was a good writer and I really took that to heart. 

I am a Diarist. I keep track for my own good and secretly hope it’s also for someone else’s. 

I am a Diarist. And sometimes that’s really embarrassing. But I stopped dreading the idea of people reading my diaries when I started living in ways i was excited to write about. I stopped feeling humiliated that I've left a detailed written record of my worst thoughts, most unwise deeds, & most regretful mistakes when I started to see my growth away from them develop in the record too; when you take enough notes for long enough, it's all there. 

blessed be the diarists who came before, for they left me libraries with plenty of blank pages 

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So what is The Diarist now? The Diarist is a photo series of messy desks and bedside tables, The Diarist is a travel journal, The Diarist is a collection of iPhone notes, The Diarist is a set of ticket stubs; The Diarist is keeping track in whatever ways seem useful and beautiful.