Tom O'Horgan, 1924-2009

Patrick Eagar/La MaMa Archive

A career of endless quest: O'Horgan's La MaMa production of Tom Paine, 1967

Conrad Ward

O'Horgan's production of Rochelle Owens's "Futz" at La MaMa, 1967.

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More About

• Tom O'Horgan
• Ned Wayburn
• Virgil Thomson
• Tom Paine
• Sam Shepard

That situation naturally couldn't last. Broadway looked to systematize what it saw as simply a new bag of marketable tricks, and O'Horgan again moved on. He tried film; his aimed-for fluidity congealed unhappily on celluloid. He tried opera, creating the stunning visual coup with the Trojan Horse that made his Les Troyens in Vienna legendary; most opera houses weren't ready then for his brand of daring. Cushioned by his Broadway royalties, he took up smaller-scale projects as they came to him, meanwhile building and populating his loft, and his life. Hard to sum up: He had made all the right "career moves" while barely pursuing a career at all; a quest is not a career. O'Horgan sought a theater that could perpetually change; the fluidity he sought engulfed and absorbed him. His achievements are virtually impossible to re-create. I think he might actually be rather proud of that. He would know, from Goethe, that only when Faust begs the beautiful moment to stay can the Devil finally entrap him.

mfeingold@villagevoice.com