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Frederick Neumann, Actor, Director and Interpreter of Beckett, Dies at 86
Frederick Neumann, an actor and director whose affinity for Samuel Beckett’s works and his friendship with the man himself helped forge the distinguished New York experimental troupe Mabou Mines, died on Nov. 27 at his home in Kingston, N.J. He was 86.
The cause was complications of diabetes, his son, David, said.
Insome regards, Mr. Neumann had the motley résumé of many a working actor, with small roles in Hollywood films, guest appearances on television series and a foray or two on Broadway. But his main impact was away from the popular track — Off Broadway or Off Off, frequently in the audience-challenging realm of experimental theater.
In 1971 he joined a fledgling troupe consisting of the director JoAnneAkalaitis, the writer and director Lee Breuer, the composer Philip Glass and the actors David Warrilow and Ruth Maleczech.
Calling themselves Mabou Mines — the name came from a town in Nova Scotia where the group spent a working summer — they produced a series of works that, in the parlance of the time, might have been considered less theater than performance art or conceptual art, generallyinvolving the Minimalist music of Mr. Glass.
It was the company’s attachment to Beckett, however, that established it as a theater troupe. By 1990, Mabou Mines had produced eight of Beckett’s works — including six not originally written for the theater that had their world premieres with the company.
Mr. Neumann had met Beckett at a museum in East Berlin in 1976, and their ensuing friendshipencouraged the playwright to entrust him and the company with those nontheatrical texts.
“Fred, as an actor, could appear at the same time avuncular and congenial and warm and cuddly — and also dangerous and brutal, quite threatening,” Ms. Akalaitis said in an interview this week. “Behind all that was the mind of a truly cultivated man, interested in literature, who had a long relationship with Beckettthat he treasured.”
Mr. Neumann, who appeared in most of the Beckett pieces, directed three of the adaptations. One was “Mercier and Camier,” a kind of novelistic forerunner to “Waiting for Godot.” Written in 1946 (though not published until 1970), it tells of two mismatched pals, the title characters — Mr. Neumann played Mercier — on an aimless journey “towards some unquestioned goal.”
Theothers were “Company,” a slim volume of fictionalized, autobiographical episodes that Mr. Neumann and his wife, Honora Fergusson, created for the stage together; and “Worstward Ho,” a dense monologue about existence that Mr. Neumann adapted for four performers, including himself as the narrator.
“The theme is, of course, Beckett’s old tune — man is born astride of a grave,” Mel Gussow wrote in hisreview for The New York Times, “with the difference, in Mr. Neumann’s interpretation, that the narrator is already standing in his grave. The piece ends with the sun, which appears to be rising. On the other hand, this could also be a setting sun. In keeping with the spirit of the author, the stage version of ‘Worstward Ho’ leaves the final analysis to the audience.”
Mr. Glass wrote music for thefirst two pieces, but Beckett drew the line at “Worstward Ho,” which had its premiere at the Classic Stage Company in New York in 1986, three years before his death.
“With all due respect to Philip,” Mr. Neumann recalled Beckett’s saying, “no music, for pity’s sake. It’s my last gasp.”
Frederick Carl Neumann was born on May 17, 1926, on Sugar Island, on the eastern tip of the Upper Peninsula ofMichigan. His father left his mother, Freda Wooten, when the child was an infant. Fred, the oldest of her eight children, had three stepfathers — “a couple of them were scary,” Mr. Neumann’s son said — and grew up largely in Flat Rock, Mich., near Detroit.
He joined the Army Air Forces during World War II and was trained as a tail gunner, but never saw combat. During his service he attended...