As If: An Autobiography

Herbert Blau is one of the most influential theater theorists, practitioners, and educators of his generation. He is a leading American interpreter of the works of Samuel Beckett, and as a director has been instrumental in introducing works of the European avant-garde to American audiences. He is also author of influential books such as The Dubious Spectacle, The Audience, and Take Up the Bodies: Theater at the Vanishing Point.

In this lecture, Blau reads from the opening chapter of his autobiography As If, a work in progress. The chapter focuses on his growing up in Brooklyn during the Depression, which shaped the experimental ways he approaches the theater, as well as his writing and scholarship that began in parallel with his theater work.