Claude Fredericks, Playwright
A Life in Myth and Dialogue
This is the first of a two-part exploration of Claude’s life as a playwright — a lesser-known but essential part of his creative world. This post draws from About the Plays, a privately printed chapbook Claude and I assembled in 2012, and features selections from the three plays he saw staged Off-Broadway in the 1950s and 60s: The Idiot King, On Circe’s Island, and A Summer Ghost.
Claude Fredericks (1923–2013) kept one of the longest personal journals ever written—more than 65,000 pages across eight decades, now housed at the Getty Research Institute. A playwright, printer, teacher, and diarist, he recorded everything: daily rhythms, private longings, and moments of profound artistic insight. Through his Banyan Press, he published works by Gertrude Stein, André Gide, James Merrill, and others. In the 1950s and 60s, his own mythic, lyrical plays were staged Off-Broadway. Since January, I’ve been sharing excerpts from his journal here on Extracts — a life fully observed, and fully written.
Claude as Playwright: The Hidden Thread
For most people who’ve come to know Claude Fredericks — through his journals, his teaching, his printing work — the plays are something of a surprise.
They were for me, too.
Even before I met Claude, I knew he had written plays. I remember reading it in the Bennington College catalog when I was still in high school — his faculty bio mentioned that several of his plays had been performed Off-Broadway. (I also remember it noted that he taught a course called Corydon, a survey of classic literature written by homosexual writers — something that struck me deeply, even then.)
Once I arrived at Bennington, that thread became more vivid: one of his most beloved courses was called Theatrical Idiom, and he was legendary for staging fully costumed productions of ancient Greek drama — Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides — complete with choruses in masks, often performed outdoors and covered by the local press. He also directed Noh plays and taught theater as a poetic and mythic art. So when Claude mentioned, early in our friendship, that he had once written plays, I already knew. What I didn’t yet understand was how deeply that work mattered to him — how central it was to his identity as a writer.
Claude saw himself, deeply, as a playwright. He loved the theater’s immediacy, its rhythm and breath. He loved voices in conversation — something you can hear constantly in his journals, where remembered speech often lifts off the page like dialogue.
And he had friends in the world of theater who understood this part of him. Julian Beck and Judith Malina of The Living Theatre produced The Idiot King in 1954 — a mythic, pacifist parable in the form of a poetic tragedy. Years later, On Circe’s Island and A Summer Ghost were staged by The Artists Theatre in New York.
Claude’s plays drew on deep myth and ritual. He cast his characters in archetypal, otherworldly realms: kings who reject war, nuns who summon impossible courage, tricksters and prophets who move in symbolic light and shadow.
And yet, even within this elevated language and structure, you can feel something startlingly intimate.
He often spoke of an unfinished play he called Doors — set here in the front hallway of the house — with seven doors, one of which led to the center of hell, where ‘The Mothers’ played cards — smoking heavily on cigarettes — and pulled the strings of fate. Claude’s mythologies were often etched straight into the floorboards.
This week on Extracts, I’m sharing some of that world.
In 2012, Claude and I spent nearly a year revisiting his dramatic work, which led to the publication of Three Plays — a collection of The Idiot King, On Circe’s Island, and A Summer Ghost. It was a project close to his heart, and one we worked on carefully, from manuscript review to layout and final design. Around the same time, we also assembled About the Plays, a short companion chapbook reflecting on that part of his life. This post draws from both efforts — and from many longer conversations we had over the years.
Note: If you’re interested in reading more of Claude’s work, links to purchase Three Plays (2012), Selected Poems (2005), and all six volumes of his early journals (1932–1943) are available on the Published Works page of the Extracts website.
This Week For Paid Subscribers
Inside this week’s post, you’ll find the story behind About the Plays — the short chapbook Claude and I assembled in 2012 to mark the publication of Three Plays — along with rare archival materials, photos, and reflections. You’ll also find excerpts from the plays themselves, the full chapbook text, and a closer look at Claude’s dramatic vision — and why I believe it still matters.
Claude’s plays invite us to think mythically, to listen inwardly. Like the journals, they ask us to tune in more deeply — not just to others, but to ourselves. If you’d like to explore them further, I’d love to share them with you.
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Coming Up Next
Next week, we return to Claude’s journals.
In a special follow-up to this post, I’ll be sharing entries from the 1950s and 60s — capturing the moments when The Idiot King, On Circe’s Island, and A Summer Ghost were being rehearsed, staged, and received in New York. You’ll hear Claude reflecting on the productions, the people involved, and the shifting arc of his life as a playwright.
It’s the second half of a story — one rooted in language, longing, and the deep question of how a life in the theater might take hold.
Stay Engaged and Share the Journey
Are you enjoying these glimpses into Claude’s world? I’d love to know what resonates with you. Drop a comment below, or share this post with someone who might connect with Claude’s work — as a playwright, a diarist, or a seeker.
Do you write plays? Keep a journal? Work with myth, memory, or voice?
Claude believed all of it mattered — and that each act of attention, each effort to shape what’s within, is its own kind of art.
—Marc
Copyright Notice: All journal entries and photographs are © Marc Harrington. No portion of these materials—whether photographs, full journal entries, excerpts, or extracts—may be used or reproduced in any form without written permission. With gratitude to the Getty Research Institute for preserving the original manuscripts.
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