After Grandmother Is in the Strawberry Patch, Harry Koutoukas had another big row with Ellen Stewart. Both had strong personalities, and they clashed several times over the years, culminating in him sending her tumbling down a few stairs—though because this legendary incident had been embellished over the years, who knows exactly what happened. Real life often blended with fantasy, especially when highly theatrical people got involved. The story resonated because it reminded some on the scene of an over-the-top moment from the 1947 film noir classic Kiss of Death, in which Richard Widmark rolled a wheelchair-bound woman down a flight of stairs. “I was there the night Harry threw Ellen down the stairs of La MaMa,” playwright Robert Patrick recalled, “and she forgave him. Everybody forgave Harry for everything. He was the most extreme example of what we all were—dropouts, freaks, originals, or ‘gargoyles,’ as he would put it.” Koutoukas finally returned to the La MaMa fold on Christmas day 1975 for a presentation of his play Star Followers in an Ancient Land. Because Agosto Machado was friends with Koutoukas and had known Stewart from La MaMa’s early days in the basement of East Ninth Street, he was asked to help smooth things over. “Ellen was so pleased,” he said, “and Harry was so honored to be back at La MaMa, because it really was important to him.” Machado also performed in Star Followers, as did Koutoukas’s friend Bruce Eyster. “One day I was walking around,” he recalled, “and Harry came up to me and said, ‘You’re going to be in my Christmas show.’ And I said, ‘Oh, really? Well, okay.’ ” Eyster played a Heavenly Body, Machado was one of the Three Wise Men, and Koutoukas once again cast Mary Boylan, who was given lines from the Bible. “Harry, you didn’t write this,” she told him. “Well, no,” Harry replied, “but if you’re going to plagiarize, I believe you should plagiarize from the best.”

From Chapter 29 of The Downtown Pop Underground — order online, or from a local independent bookstore