Noted director Max Stafford-Clark, formerly the artistic director of London's Royal Court, was ousted from the Out of Joint theater company after a staff member formally complained about his lewd comments to her. Gina Abolins, 29, says the director, 76, said to her: “Back in the day, I’d have been up you like a rat up a drainpipe, but now I’m a reformed character. My disability means I’m practically a virgin again.” Abolins also said Stafford-Clark told her she should buy a bikini, have casual sex in it, and then tell him all about it. Abolins said: ''I felt really bullied and objectified.''
Out of Joint asked Stafford-Clark to leave, but only said that he was focusing on his freelance career, without mentioning Abolins' complaint.
Abolins said she felt “upset, frustrated, a little angry” at the theater's apparent coverup, and “I did feel like he’d got away with it.”
Since then, other women have come forward to tell the Guardian that they, too, had gotten lewd comments from Stafford-Clark.
Steffi Holtz, a playwright, said he once told her: '‘If you were sat on the desk there in front of me, I would eat you out.’' |
