Ruth Maleczech (January 8, 1939 – September 30, 2013) was an American avant-garde stage actress.
University of Notre Dame; accessed October 6, 2013. She won three Obie Awards for Best Actress in her career, for ''Hajj'' (1983), ''Through the Leaves'', (1984) and ''Lear'' (1990) and an Obie Award for Design, shared with Julie Archer, for ''Vanishing Pictures'' (1980), which she also directed. Her performance as Lear was widely acclaimed: her

King Lear ''King Lear'' is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. It is based on the mythological Leir of Britain. King Lear, in preparation for his old age, divides his power and land between two of his daughters. He becomes destitute and insane an ...

was portrayed as an imperious Southern matriarch.

Life and career

Maleczech was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

as Ruth Sophia Reinprecht, to Frank Reinprecht (1912–1982) and Elizabeth (née Maletich, originally Maletić) Reinprecht (1914–1996), who emigrated from Yugoslavia. Her parents were a steel worker and seamstress, respectively. She had two siblings, Frank and Patricia, with whom she was raised in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

. Maleczech was the first in her family to attend college, beginning theater studies at UCLA at 16. From there she went to San Francisco to work, where she met

Mabou Mines Mabou Mines is an experimental theatre company founded in 1970 and based in New York City. Founding and history Mabou Mines was founded by David Warrilow, Lee Breuer, Ruth Maleczech, JoAnne Akalaitis, and Philip Glass, at the house of Akalaitis an ...

co-founder

Lee Breuer Esser Leopold Breuer (February 6, 1937 – January 3, 2021) was an American playwright, theater director, academic, educator, filmmaker, poet, and lyricist. Breuer taught and directed on six continents. Career Breuer was a founding co-artistic ...

. The two became a couple and, in 1964, they went to Paris and for six years earned money dubbing films, sufficient to fund their burgeoning theatrical experiments. In France, Maleczech and

JoAnne Akalaitis JoAnne Akalaitis (born June 29, 1937, in Cicero, Illinois) is an avant-garde Lithuanian-American theatre director and writer. She won five Obie Awards for direction (and sustained achievement) and was founder in 1970 of the critically acclaimed M ...

studied with the Polish director and drama theorist

Jerzy Grotowski Jerzy Marian Grotowski (; 11 August 1933 – 14 January 1999) was a Polish theatre director and theorist whose innovative approaches to acting, training and theatrical production have significantly influenced theatre today. He was born in Rzesz ...

; Maleczech also spent a month in East Berlin studying, observing rehearsals and attending performances by

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

's storied

Berliner Ensemble The Berliner Ensemble () is a German theatre company established by actress Helene Weigel and her husband, playwright Bertolt Brecht, in January 1949 in East Berlin. In the time after Brecht's exile, the company first worked at Wolfgang Langhoff ...

. Returning to the United States, Maleczech co-founded the experimental N.Y.C. theater company Mabou Mines, in 1970, along with Akalaitis, Breuer,

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

and

David Warrilow David Warrilow (28 December 1934 – 17 August 1995) was an English actor best known as one of the "finest interpreters of Samuel Beckett’s work".Cited in Ackerley, C.J., and Gontarski, Stan, ''The Grove Companion to Samuel Beckett'', New Yor ...

. Maleczech collaborated on nearly every piece Mabou Mines produced. She adopted a phonetic spelling of her mother's maiden name as her professional name (Maletich → Maleczech). She directed/adapted several works: ''Wrong Guys'', from the hard-boiled novel by Jim Strahs; ''Vanishing Pictures'', based on Poe's ''Mystery of Marie Roget'';

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish novelist, dramatist, short story writer, theatre director, poet, and literary translator. His literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal and tragicomic expe ...

's ''

Imagination Dead Imagine Imagination Dead Imagine is a short prose text by Samuel Beckett first published in French in '' Les Lettres nouvelles'' in 1965. Its first English publication was a translation in ''The Sunday Times'' in 1965 followed by a trade edition by Beckett ...

'' (as a hologram); ''The Bribe'' by Terry O'Reilly; her own ''Sueños'', inspired by the life of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz; ''Belén: A Book of Hours'', written by Catherine Sasanov; and ''Song For New York''. In addition to working together for a half century, she and Breuer had two children. They legally married in New York in 1978. Outside of Mabou Mines, Maleczech created Fire Works with Valeria Vasilevski and collaborated and worked with, among others,

Peter Sellars Peter Sellars (born September 27, 1957) is an American theatre director, noted for his unique contemporary stagings of classical and contemporary operas and plays. Sellars is professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where ...

Frederick Wiseman Frederick Wiseman (born January 1, 1930) is an American filmmaker, documentarian, and theater director. His work is "devoted primarily to exploring American institutions". He has been called "one of the most important and original filmmakers worki ...

and

Martha Clarke Martha Clarke (born June 3, 1944) is an American theater director and choreographer noted for her multidisciplinary approach to theatre, dance, and opera productions. Her best-known original work is ''The Garden of Earthly Delights'' (1984, re-im ...

. She appeared in numerous feature films, commercial and independent, and on television in ''

Law & Order ''Law & Order'' is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment, launching the '' Law & Order'' franchise. ''Law & Order'' aired its entire run on NBC, premiering on ...

'' and '' ER''.

Death

Ruth Maleczech died at age 74 from breast cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at her son's home in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. She is survived by her husband, son (Lute Breuer), daughter (Clove Galilee) and a granddaughter (Bella Breuer). She was also survived by two siblings, Frank A. Reinprecht and Mrs. Patricia Adams, and various nieces and nephews.

Selected awards

Obie Awards

* Best Performance, ''Mabou Mines Lear'' - 1990 * Best Performance, ''Hajj'' - 1983 * Best Performance, ''Through the Leaves'' - 1984 * Best Design (shared with Julie Archer), ''Vanishing Pictures'' - 1980 * Sustained Achievement, Mabou Mines - 1986

Villager Downtown Theater Awards

*Best Solo Performance, ''Hajj'' - 1990 *Best Director, ''Wrong Guys'' - 1981 *Best Director, ''Vanishing Pictures'' - 1980 *Best Ensemble, Shaggy Dog Animation - 1978

Other Awards

* For Lifetime Dedication to Not-For-Profit Theatre (2001) * Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre: Certificate of Outstanding Merit for her "influential, pioneering role in experimental theatre" (2006) * Edwin Booth Award: To the Artistic Directors of Mabou Mines for Contributions to Theatre (2007) * Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2009) * Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre (2010) * USA Gracie Fellow in Theater Arts by United States Artists (2010) * Inductee (posthumously) into the Off Broadway Hall of Fame by The Off Broadway Alliance (2014)

Filmography

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Maleczech, Ruth 1939 births 2013 deaths American stage actresses American television actresses Actresses from Phoenix, Arizona Deaths from cancer in New York (state) Deaths from breast cancer Deaths from emphysema University of California, Los Angeles alumni 20th-century American actresses American people of Yugoslav descent Obie Award recipients 21st-century American women