Resolving theater conflict
The cultural life of Malibu will be greatly diminished if the “ousting” of Charles Marowitz as Artistic Director of the Malibu Stage Company, its co-founder, goes unchallenged. Mr. Marowitz is a distinguished Shakespearean scholar, world-class director, author and critic, a man of letters who stands for high standards and a vision of great theater, not pop culture, but not to the exclusion of community talent which abides by standards of excellence and integrity.
The ideal of genuine theater is difficult to achieve but it becomes more challenging when co-founders engage in a war between the pathology of power and the acidity of genius. Since the two protagonists are both dear to me, I grieve the mortal wounds they inflict on each other and the Company. I beseech them to seek a higher ground of reconciliation and save the Malibu Stage Company from lapsing into mediocrity and irrelevance. Let the politics of intrigue cease in what has become, behind the scenes, a theater of the absurd.
We recommend a Board of Arbitration composed of honorary members and sponsors of the Company, a member of the City Council, which supports the Company as a community concern, and legal counsel for both sides, to re-establish peace and order in the administration of the Malibu Stage Company.
Rabbi Benjamin Herson