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-imagined 2008), an exploration in theatre, dance, music and flying of the famous painting of the same name by Hieronymus Bosch.
In 1990, Clarke received a MacArthur Award, better known as the Genius Grant.
Training and early career
Born into a German-Jewish family of musicians in Pikesville, Maryland, in suburban Baltimore, she studied dance with Carol Lynn and Dale Sehnert in the preparatory program of the Peabody Conservatory, going on to study at the dance program of the Juilliard School under Antony Tudor and Anna Sokolow. She then spent three years performing with the modern dance choreographer Anna Sokolow and the Dance Theater Workshop. She later became a founding member of Pilobolus Dance Theatre and Crowsnest before going on to a highly original career as a director/choreographer.
Theatre, dance and opera career
As a director, Martha Clarke’s many original productions include The Garden of Earthly Delights (with musical score by Richard Peaslee), Vienna: Lusthaus Miracolo d’Amore, Endangered Species, An Uncertain Hour, The Hunger Artist, Vers la Flamme, Chéri and God's Fool. She directed the premiere of Christopher Hampton’s Alice’s Adventures Underground at the Royal National Theatre in London. Angel Reapers (with text by Alfred Uhry – Pulitzer Prize for Driving Miss Daisy) had its New York premiere at the Joyce Theater November 29 – December 11, 2011. She created the full-evening work L’altra metá del cielo spring 2012 at La Scala Opera in Milan, Italy.
Her original productions have been presented at The Public Theater, Lincoln Center Theater, New York Theatre Workshop, Signature Theatre Company, The Kennedy Center, La MaMa, La Scala among others.From June 12 - July 2, 2022, Ms. Clarke's latest multidisciplinary theatre work God's Fool was presented at La MaMa in New York City. A song cycle, God's Fool incorporates an a cappella score performed live, derived from music spanning a period of 800 years.
In dance, she has choreographed for the Nederlands Dans Theater, the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, Rambert Dance Company, and The Martha Graham Company, among others.
In opera, Clarke has directed Mozart's The Magic Flute for the Glimmerglass Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, Cosi fan tutte for Glimmerglass, Tan Dun’s Marco Polo for the Munich Biennale, the Hong-Kong Festival, and the New York City Opera, and Gluck’s Orfeo and Euridice for the English National Opera and the New York City Opera.
She directed Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the American Repertory Theater and a music/theater work, Belle Epoque, based on the life of Toulouse-Lautrec at Lincoln Center Theater.
She has collaborated with playwrights Christopher Hampton, Richard Greenberg, Charles L. Mee, and Alfred Uhry.
Mel Gussow in the New York Times Magazine article called "Clarke Work" wrote: "In Martha Clarke's work, theater and dance are inseparable, unified into a style of performance that lacks a name but not a dimension. Her pieces, marked by their precision and visual beauty, are performance art objects."
While Clarke does not compose the musical scores or texts (when present) for her original works, she is engaged in all aspects of production and direction, from conception and structure to details of music, text, lighting, and costumes. Britannica Online summarizes her choreographic approach in saying that her "emotionally evocative work draws extensively on theatrical elements."
Clarke's work mostly draws inspiration from the visual arts, especially painting. In this preoccupation, Clarke can be associated with such disparate artists as Peter Sellars, Pina Bausch, and Robert Wilson. New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman wrote of her Miracolo d'Amore in 1988 that it "... can be counted among the recent opera productions, films and theatrical presentations that in one way or another emulate painting. Franco Zeffirelli, George Lucas, Pina Bausch, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Robert Wilson and Peter Sellars share with Clarke this striking characteristic: They view the performing arts as a pretext for staging visual spectaculars."
In June 2007, a version of The Garden of Earthly Delights show opened the 30th anniversary of the American Dance Festival. On November 19, 2008, the re-imagined Garden of Earthly Delights opened Off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York City and ran until April 5, 2009.