Robert Sanford Brustein (April 21, 1927 – October 29, 2023) was an American theater critic, producer, playwright, writer, and educator. He founded the Yale Repertory Theatre while serving as dean of the Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as the American Repertory Theater and Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he was a creative consultant until his death, and was the theatre critic for The New Republic.
Brustein was a senior research fellow at Harvard University and a distinguished scholar in residence at Suffolk University in Boston.Celebrated Writer-Director Robert Brustein Joins Suffolk University He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1999, and in 2002, was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.Complete List of ATHOF Inductees (pdf) In 2003, he served as a senior fellow with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, and in 2004/2005, was a senior fellow at the National Endowment for the Arts Arts Journalism Institute in Theatre and Musical Theatre at the University of Southern California. In 2010, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama
Early life and education Robert Sanford Brustein was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 21, 1927, to Blanche Haft Brustein and Max Brustein. He grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, residing in the same apartment building as Sergei Rachmaninoff.Napoleon, Davi. The Faster Times (June 4, 2011) In elementary and high school, his dream was to lead a swing band like Artie Shaw.
Brustein attended The High School of Music & Art.Wolfson, C.K. "Theatre: Robert Brustein: Best of all worlds," The Martha's Vineyard Times (September 20, 2007). At the age of 16, he enrolled at Amherst College, where he received a BA in medieval history in 1948. When he turned 18, he briefly left Amherst to enlist in the Merchant Marines, though he never saw action as a cadet midshipman at the end of World War II. He spoke about his desire to later avoid being drafted for service in the Korean War (he was not given an exemption for previous service) by continuing his post-graduate education.
Brustein spent an "unhappy year" at the Yale School of Drama studying dramatic literature and criticism before attending Columbia University to complete his MA in 1950. He also held a Fulbright Fellowship to study in the United Kingdom from 1953 to 1955, where he directed plays at the University of Nottingham.Robert Brustein, "A Critic in the Making"(pdf), Nottingham Alumni Online, 2001. p.15
Throughout the later 1940s and into the 1950s, Brustein tried to work as an actor, participating in underground theater companies in New York and Wellesley. He auditioned, to Joseph Papp of The Public, for the lead role in a 1957 production of Richard III, but lost out to George C. Scott.
Brustein received a PhD in 1957 in dramatic literature, supervised by Lionel Trilling. His dissertation was on the playwright John Marston.Robert Sanford Brustein. "Italian Court Satire and the Plays of John Marston." Ph.D. dissertation--Columbia University, 1957. .
Academic career After teaching at Cornell University, Vassar College, and Columbia, where he became a full professor of dramatic literature in the English department, he became Dean of the Yale School of Drama in 1966, and served in that position until 1979. It was during this period, in 1966, that he founded the Yale Repertory Theatre."History" on the Yale School of Drama website
In 1978, Yale announced that it would not renew Brustein's contract when it was set to end in June 1979, not citing any specific reason for ending his tenure. Brustein strongly criticized the decision, and Yale President A. Bartlett Giamatti, for weakening the theater school's ability to properly train future dramatic voices for the American stage, in the name of lowering the barrier of entry for other Yale students interested in theater.
In 1979, Brustein left Yale for Harvard University, where he founded the American Repertory Theater (ART) and became a professor of English. At Harvard, he founded the Institute for Advanced Theater Training. He retired from the artistic directorship of ART in 2002, and then served on the faculty of the institute. He was a distinguished scholar in residence from 2007, at Suffolk University, where he taught courses in Shakespeare Analysis."Robert Brustein" on the Suffolk University website As the artistic director of Yale Rep from 1966 to 1979, and of ART from 1980 to 2002, Brustein supervised over 200 productions, acting in eight and directing twelve.
As head of ART, Brustein engaged in a public disagreement with Samuel Beckett over a 1984 production of his play Endgame, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis. Akalaitis's direction featured black actors, music from Philip Glass, and a subway tunnel setting, all of which offended Beckett's stated vision for the staging. Brustein defended the production's ability to freely interpret Beckett's words as they saw fit. He negotiated a compromise with Beckett that would avert legal action and allow the play to proceed as staged, but included a program insert from Beckett disavowing the choices: “My play requires an empty room and two small windows. The American Repertory Theater production which dismisses my directions is a complete parody of the play as conceived by me. Anybody who cares for the work couldn’t fail to be disgusted by this.”
Critical work Brustein was the theatre critic for The New Republic from 1959 into the 2000s, and later contributed to The Huffington Post.
His critical style was defined as "pugilistic" and "pugnacious"—especially with his harsh criticism of artists—which he later regretted. In 2014, Tennessee Williams biographer John Lahr and Brustein spoke about a 1980 review of Williams's Clothes for a Summer Hotel where Brustein had written:"I suspect the playwright would just as soon let the moment pass in silence while he licks his wounds and ponders his next move (perhaps a flight to Three Mile Island on a one-way ticket).”To Lahr, Brustein disavowed the words, saying that he couldn't "imagine making such a cruel and aggressive remark."
He authored sixteen books on theatre and society:
1964: The Theatre of Revolt: An Approach to Modern Drama (Little, Brown) – essays on Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw, Brecht, Pirandello, O'Neill, and Artaud and Genet, considered a "standard critical text on modern drama"A Havoc of Meddling Fools Wrapped Up in One Man 1965: Seasons of Discontent: Dramatic Opinions 1959–1965 (Simon and Schuster) ISBN none – "an assemblage of his best magazine pieces from 1959 to "Kirkus Reviews 1969: The Third Theatre (Knopf) – "a collection of pieces written between 1957 and 1968 ... that deal not only with theatre but also with literature, culture, and the movies" (from the Preface).Book Detail 1971: Revolution as Theatre: Notes on the New Radical Style (Liveright) – examines campus turmoil, radicalism versus liberalism, the fate of the free university, the new revolutionary life style, the decadence of American society, and the sentimentality and false emotionalism of radical alternativesNorton catalog 1975: The Culture Watch: Essays on Theatre and Society, 1969–1974 (Knopf) – "As far as these bristling exhortations go, well, you have to wish the gadfly well"Kirkus Reviews 1980: Critical Moments: Reflection on Theatre & Society, 1973–1979 (Random House) ISBN 0394510933 – "Can the Show Go On?", "The Future of the Endowments", "The Artist and the Citizen" and other essays on the state of American theatre.Google Books 1981: Making Scenes: A Personal History of the Turbulent Years at Yale, 1966–1979 (Random House) – Brustein looks at his time at Yale as part "of a larger social and cultural pattern"Kirkus Reviews 1987: Who Needs Theatre: Dramatic Opinions (Atlantic Monthly) – a collection of reviews and essays including "an assessment of hits like 'Cats' and '42nd Street', Polish theatre, drama on apartheid and the Broadway vogue for British imports."Google Books 1991: Reimagining American Theatre (Hill & Wang) – reviews and essays, mostly from The New Republic considering the state of American theater in the 1980s.Publishers Weekly 1994: Dumbocracy in America: Studies in the Theatre of Guilt, 1987–1994 (Ivan R. Dee) – "uses the prism of the American theatre to explore the motivating impulses behind rampant political correctness and to assess government efforts to regulate the arts"Google Books 1998: Cultural Calisthenics: Writings on Race, Politics, and Theatre (Ivan R. Dee) – "Many of these essays ... are concerned with how "extra-artistic considerations'" – multiculturalism, gay rights, women's issues and political correctness – impair current thought, including that of arts funding agencies."Robin Lippincott in the New York Times 2001: The Siege of the Arts: Collected Writings, 1994–2001 (Ivan R. Dee) – "The opening essays lead the charge against The Three Horsemen of the Anti-Culture: political, moral, and middlebrow aesthetic correctness ... allied with corporate capitalism and a rigid multiculturalism"Kirkus Reviews 2005: Letters to a Young Actor: A Universal Guide to Performance (Basic Books) – "A guidebook for performers on stage and screen [which] aims to inspire struggling dramatists and also reinvigorate the very state of the art of acting itself."Google Books 2006: Millennial Stages: Essays and Reviews 2001–2005 (Yale Univ. Press) – "examines crucial issues relating to theater in the post-9/11 years, analyzing specific plays, emerging and established performers, and theatrical production throughout the world"Yale University Press catalog 2009: The Tainted Muse: Prejudices and Preconceptions in Shakespeare's Works and Times "an untainted lens through which to see Shakespeare as never before" 2011: Rants and Raves: Opinions, Tributes, and Elegies 2014: Winter Passages: Essays and Criticism
Brustein was the writer and narrator of a WNET television series in 1966 called The Opposition Theatre. He also commented on contemporary social and political issues for the Huffington Post.
Conflict with August Wilson In 1996 and 1997, Brustein was involved in an extended public debate – through their essays, speeches and personal appearances – with African-American playwright August Wilson about multiculturalism, color-blind casting, and other issues where race impacts on the craft and practice of theatre in America.William Grimes, "On Stage and Off: Face to Face on Multiculturalism", New York Times (December 13, 1996).William Grimes, "Face-to-Face Encounter on Race in the Theater", New York Times (January 29, 1997).Frank Rich, "Two Mouths Running", New York Times (February 1, 1997)Margo Jefferson, "Oratory vs. Really Talking About Culture", New York Times (February 4, 1997).Wilson vs. Brustein "The feud," wrote Bruce Weber in the New York Times, "... reached a climax in 1997 with an extraordinary public debate in front of a sold-out house at Town Hall in Midtown Manhattan."
Other conflicts