Re: RAT, The dramaturgy of...

[Robert Faires <onstage@auschron.com>]

A hopeful Ann Taylor wrote:
>Hey.  Well, this is certainly topical.  This particular idea is part of our
>apparent production style at rm 120 theatre.  In other words, the idea of
>our
>works being understood, or not, for that matter, is not something that we so
>much struggle with as it is something that we accept and ignore.  What
>interests me is not so much whether we wrestle with being "gotten" as much
>as
>it is something that we belligerently ignore.  One wonders: are we jacking
>off?  Is it important for other people to "get" our work, or is the value of
>our work not so much in the acceptance and acclaim and recognition, etc., as
>it is in the process and the exploration?  Well, you might guess what I
>think.  Even on my most insecure days, when you call me on it, my answer
>will
>always be..."Fuck 'em."

Pardon me, Ann, if I'm interpreting your "Fuck 'em" too seiously. You may
not mean to suggest at all that you and the rm 120 folks really don't care
*anything* about the audience or their response to your work, but it was
the idea of a company sincerely saying "Fuck 'em" to the audience that got
me thinking, so I'll use that idea as a jumping-off point if I may.

Artists who say "Fuck 'em" to the audience drive me fuckin' nuts.

Not because I think the artists have to explain everything they do onstage
or off, to serve every work with explanatory footnotes, the ol' spoonful of
sugar (or bedful of Red Vines, if you're Joel McKean), to make sure
everybody "gets" what they're trying to do. People who make art, whether
it's theatre or dance or visual art or whatever, ought to be able to draw
on whatever inspiration they need to in the process of creation, and
willful obscurity doesn't bother me. Well, in principle. In practice, I've
been bugged by it on numerous occasions. But that's about me responding to
the individual work and not condemning the work because the artists didn't
give me the secret decoder ring for unscrambling their cryptic artistic
message.

No, it's usually because that "Fuck 'em" means that on some level these
artists believe that the audience doesn't matter. And I can't accept that.
The audience always matters, whether they understand the work or not,
whether they love it or hate it or are disturbed by it or enlightened by
it. They matter because part of the heart of theatre lies in communion.
People together in a space to share a story or a feeling or a mystery. It's
the folks who already have the story or feeling or mystery sharing it with
those who don't and sometimes with those who do but who want to have it
shared with them again. And without those latter folks, it just can't work.
Process and exploration are great things, and they can make for more
knowledgeable, more passionate, more committed artists, but they're
classroom exercises, self-improvement sessions, even jacking off, if they
aren't ultimately shared with others.

And by sharing I don't simply mean presenting a work to an audience. If you
put on the show with the attitude of "Fuck 'em if they don't get it," then
you're not sharing. You're setting yourself apart from the audience,
putting yourself above the audience. You're holding onto whatever it is you
have.

One of the aspects of RAT that has always inspired me, and continues to
inspire me, is the notion of hospitality as a vital force in theatre. You
offer whatever it is you have to the people who come to your theatre, to
your show, you give up what you have as freely as you would to a guest in
your home. And that's essentially what your audience is: guests in your
home. It doesn't mean you can't challenge them while they're there, that
you can't provoke them or make them uncomfortable or disturb them. All that
is possible, but before that can take place, there is a need to acknowledge
their willingness to be there, to understand the gift they give you, which
is their presence. They are giving to you, and it's only right for you to
give back. You give and you get. It's old news, maybe so old that it sounds
trite, but I believe in it and, largely through RAT have come to see it as
a foundation for theatre, certainly the kind of theatre that I want to make
and to experience.

Again, Ann, I apologize if I've made too much of what was an off-handed
remark on your part. It just got some ideas rolling through my head and I
wanted to follow them to see where they'd go.

By the way, welcome to Austin, and I look forward to seeing rm 120's work.

The theatre critic who's having a ball playing a bitter old drunk of a
theatre critic who winds up pimping for vampires,

Robert Faires
Austin, Texas