Israel Horovitz
Israel Horovitz
Israel Horovitzis an American playwright, director, and actor...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth31 March 1939
CountryUnited States of America
writing play stories
I have never written a play, a story, a poem, or my one film - anything - unless something was troubling me enough, wrecking me, in fact, to drive me back into the absurdity of writing. I do not enjoy writing.
real self punishment
There is no crime greater, or more worthy of punishment, than being strange and frightened among the strange and frightened; except assimilation to the end of becoming strange and frightened, but apart from ones own real self.
running play paris
I began coming to Paris in the 1960s when I was told audiences here liked my work. More than 20 of my plays have been produced in Paris, and several have had long runs and have returned in revivals.
people rooted soap work
If work isn't rooted in comedy, people will turn from it, or they'll use it like soap opera.
life
I've done nothing with my life but write plays.
huge instantly plays radical vaguely
I'm really into the irony of writing vaguely radical plays that instantly win huge establishment awards. It's really amusing.
grew
I grew up in Wakefield, Mass., and there were only a couple of Jewish families in the town.
Gloucester's not some chi-chi tourist town. It's a working-class seaport: a no-kidding-around down-and-dirty place.
age body frightened good shape street terrors
It's one of the terrors of old age that your body is not your friend. Or to be out on the street and be frightened of someone because you're not in good shape and can't do anything about it.
boys car drive hebrew high highway jewish learned meet named school sit teacher towns
I learned Hebrew from a high school teacher named Mr. Cohen. We would drive down the highway to meet his car, and Jewish boys from these Massachusetts towns would sit in his car and learn the lessons.
You write a play mostly out of yourself. There's a need to get a certain thing down.
ask questions
I write because I don't know how to ask my questions any other way.
I have seen dozens upon dozens of productions of 'Lebensraum' in dozens of languages around the globe.
life visceral
I have a visceral response to a memory of working-class life.