| Notes |
- OBITUARY:
1. Online obituary from "The Guardian" by Colin Chambers, Saturday 19 February 2005:
"Vera Gottlieb. Champion of Chekhov and all things theatrical.
Professor Vera Gottlieb, who has died aged 58 after a protracted illness, was professor of drama at Goldsmiths College, University of London, from 1989, an internationally renowned authority on Chekhov and an indefatigable champion of theatre.
Born in Cambridge to parents who had recently emigrated from Riga, she attended Camden school for girls, north London, where she first discovered an enthusiasm for theatre, and, in 1964, gained a scholarship to read English and drama at the University of Bristol.
After graduating, she was assistant to the literary manager of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) before, in 1970, becoming a full-time lecturer in drama at Goldsmiths College, where she stayed for the rest of her career. She rose through the academic ranks to become Goldsmiths' first professor of drama, and served as head of department from 1992 to 1994, as well as research professor from 1996.
Gottlieb's Chekhov scholarship was noted in 1978 when she was awarded an MLitt for her thesis, "Chekhov: from Farce to Tragi-Comedy." Her subsequent book, "Chekhov and the Vaudeville," (1982), triggered a number of English-language productions of the seldom seen short plays, and remains the only full-length analysis of them in English. She later put together two vaudeville pieces and two short stories, which she translated, as "A Chekhov Quartet" (1990), a production that played in London, Moscow and Yalta.
In all her work on Chekhov, Gottlieb was keen to counter the sentimental and nostalgic perception of him in this country by highlighting the vitality of his social comedy and the historical background to his texts. As well as co-editing "The Cambridge Companion to Chekhov" (2000), she also edited and translated "Anton Chekhov at the Moscow Art Theatre" (2005), a sumptuous collection of production photographs and her last book.
Her concern for the interaction of theory and practice can be seen in "Theatre in a Cool Climate" (1999), a collection of essays she co-edited with me that offered a snapshot of contemporary theatre at the turn of the millennium, written by a diversity of theatre administrators, managers and artists.
Gottlieb brought to Goldsmiths people from the professional theatre, such as Richard Eyre, Genista McIntosh, Peter Hall, Francis de la Tour and Harold Pinter, and, in 2004, became inaugural director of the Pinter centre for research in performance at the college.
Her theatrical work underpinned this practical approach; with Robert Gordon, she founded the Magna Carta Theatre Company in 1984, dedicated to staging new plays, and she was co-director and co-author of its first two shows, "Red Earth" (1985) and "Waterloo Road" (1987). She also acted as a script consultant for RSC and Channel 4 productions.
Gottlieb carried through her view of theatre as a living activity to the inner workings of her scholarly discipline. As chair of the University of London board of studies in drama (1988-90), she set up a working party that formulated university-wide criteria for the evaluation of practice as research. In 1992, she was able to exert a national influence on this - as well as on other major topics - as a member of the first drama panel in the higher education research assessment exercise, a panel that she chaired with characteristic rigour, fairness and adherence to principle.
Her teaching and her writing emphasized the social function of theatre, but always rooted in its specific context. In 1988, she wrote an incendiary article, "Thatcher's Theatre: Or, After Equus," lambasting the British scene. The response led her to organize a symposium of theatre people on the left and a conference on the state of British theatre, which resulted in the publication of a manifesto.
Gottlieb followed this up with a symposium on "problems of contemporary theatre," which brought together eminent speakers from Russia and Britain. In 1990, she was elected a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts.
Remarkably, Gottlieb's protean energy seemed to be enhanced rather than hindered by her deafness, a result of Meniere's disease, an incurable inner ear disorder she contracted in the early 1980s. She taught herself to lip read and got on with her life.
A severe heart attack in 1994 limited the scope, if not the intensity, of her undertakings but, despite aggravated debility, her feisty affirmation of the need for social values in a postmodern world never dimmed, nor was her insistence on exacting standards or the sharp humour with which she considered her own fragile mortality and ours.
She is survived by her sister Irene.
Vera Gottlieb, scholar, born September 4, 1946; died February 5, 2005"
BIRTH:
1. Per correspondence from sister Irene in London dated 4 Mar 2009.
DEATH:
1. Per correspondence from sister Irene in London dated 4 Mar 2009.
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Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy
1946 - 2005 (58 years)