by The Living Theater

The Living Theatre marks the beginning of its 50th year of continuous production with the English-language première of Resistance, presented at the chashama space at 111 West 42nd Street from February 28 until March 11.

Resistance: News from the Val Borbera is the first work to be created at the company's new European headquarters, the Centro Living Europa in Rocchetta Ligure, Italy. The play is an evocation of the extraordinary resistance of the residents of this little town in a secluded mountain valley north of Genoa to the German occupation of 1943-45. Their unwillingness to accept the rule of Nazi troops and their Italian fascist supporters led them to spirit fugitives to safety, to capture enemy soldiers and exchange them for partisan prisoners, to operate a hospital tending the wounded of all sides, and finally, to battle the German army at the barricaded entrance to the valley.

The play is an evocation of the extraordinary resistance of the residents of this little town in a secluded mountain valley north of Genoa to the German occupation of 1943-45. Their unwillingness to accept the rule of Nazi troops and their Italian fascist supporters led them to spirit fugitives to safety, to capture enemy soldiers and exchange them for partisan prisoners, to operate a hospital tending the wounded of all sides, and finally, to battle the German army at the barricaded entrance to the valley.

Following a year-long series of encounters with the veterans of this historic struggle, the members of the Living Theatre working in Italy have composed a theater piece intended to transmit to succeeding generations those aspects of the resisters’ experience which can inform and inspire.

Translating the untranslatable - the horror of war and the resolve of conscience - Resistance takes the form of a series of ritual enactments which shape the actors' bodies into shifting flash-emblems of the struggle and which transforms their voices into a supra-natural choir. As the battle develops, members of the audience are recruited to join the action onstage. Alongside the ensemble, founder Judith Malina appears as a chestnut vendor who sets up shop at the edge of the battlefield, guiding the young resisters along their rocky path.

Resistance is the collective creation of The Living Theatre company. The play is directed by Judith Malina, the text is by Hanon Reznikov. The performers are Johnson Anthony, Joanie Fritz-Zosike, Jerry Goralnick, Robert Hieger, Marlene Lortev, Judith Malina, Lois Kagan Mingus, Craig Peritz, Rob Schmidt, and Tom Walker.