Transformative playwright who had early success with compelling theatre based on autobiographical events
Tom Kempinski was a playwright who transformed autobiography into compelling theatre in a career marked by early success with his plays Duet for One and Separation, but whose personal problems bedevilled his later years.
First seen at the Bush Theatre in 1980, Duet for One – a combative dialogue between a concert violinist coming to terms with her newly diagnosed multiple sclerosis and her psychiatrist – was met with immediate acclaim.
The Stage lauded it for “some of the finest acting and a play of unusual insight and interest”.
It earned Frances de la Tour both Olivier and Evening Standard awards and a London Theatre Critics award for Kempinski.
It went on to enjoy success in the West End at the Duke of York’s, and became a staple of regional theatres.
It was revived earlier this year, with Tara Fitzgerald and Maureen Beattie, at London’s Orange Tree Theatre.
Although it failed to entice audiences on Broadway, it was broadcast by the BBC.
Kempinski had made his West End debut in 1979 at the Mayfair Theatre with the West End transfer of Flashpoint, later that year seeing his translation of Stefan Schulz’s Mayakovsky open at the Half Moon.
By then, Kempinski’s mental and physical problems – he was depressive, agoraphobic and severely overweight – had begun to impact his personal life, leading to the break-up of his marriage to De la Tour in 1982.
They also informed 1987’s Separation at Hampstead Theatre.
Born in London to emigré German parents, his father was an occasional actor who opened a restaurant in the capital after fleeing the Nazis. Aged two, he was sent to grandparents in New York, where the death of his grandfather led to his being placed with another family.
Returning home after the Second World War, and following his father’s death when he was 10, Kempinski suffered the first of the mental breakdowns that were to affect him perpetually. Another precipitated his departure after one term from Cambridge University.
Instead, he trained at RADA and began his career as an actor, making his debut in Joseph Losey’s 1961 film The Damned.
Appearances in regional reps led to a spell at the National Theatre. In 1967, he took the title role in Charles Woods’ controversial anti-war play Dingo, at London’s Royal Court, his leaning towards radical politics seeing him abandon a workshop with Peter Brook in 1968 to join student activists.
Embracing the rebellious zeitgeist, he was a member of the Workers Revolutionary Party (from which he later distanced himself) and a member of Equity during the 1970s.
Though not for the want of trying – in all, he produced 40 plays – Kempinski never repeated his early success.
His Young Vic staging of Sex Please, We’re Italian, in 1991, was a low point that despite the presence of Helen Mirren, was given by The Stage’s then editor, Peter Hepple, a new award for “Disappointment of the Year”.
Thomas Michael John Kempinski was born on March 24, 1938 and died on August 2, aged 85. His first wife, actor Margaret Nolan, died in 2020.
He is survived by his second wife, De la Tour, and their two children, and by his third wife, entertainment lawyer Sarah Tingay, and their daughter.
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