Re: RAT, The dramaturgy of...

["Christopher Danowski" <oritutu@hotmail.com>]

This is great, just want to chime in & say how nice it is to see the RATS up 
in conversation again.  Regarding the "fuck 'em" approach & the performance 
art analogy, as well as other distinctions being made concerning how a work 
is understoof, I get a little uncomfortable (the distinctions between 
theater & performance art seem pretty blurry to me--I know there are people 
who like to staple their thumbs together in the middle of the forest & play 
Brian Eno, but of course there are also those who do it for an audience, 
with similar--if not identical--intentions as a playwright--keeping my 
definition of "playwright" in very loose parameters--maybe it's that one 
excites me & the other doesn't these days, but they both feel the same when 
they're working) ok ok ok.
I'm also thinking about the apocryphal story about Goethe & Beethoven, who 
were supposedly walking together, when the king's carriage pulled up.  
Goethe bowed & removed his hat.  Beethoven pulled his hat down further & 
kept walking.
Whatever.  A nice story about how an artist shouldn't pander or kiss up to 
the king (if you want to be Beethoven).  Some of my favorite writers didn't 
care if the audience "got it," but I think they were/are all intensely 
curious as to how the work is perceived, regardless of their original 
intentions; or rather in spite of them.
I like it when a work overwhelms me, or sometimes puts me to sleep, but find 
that later certain images keep haunting, repping & revving; more often than 
not these days this happens in dance & performance art than in a 
theater--but this comes in response to having avoided a bunch of holiday 
theater fare; curious to see what comes out of this frozen world next.  Not 
dissing theater, maybe just bored with playwrights.
Chris
A Playwright
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