Re: RAT Marx in Soho (in LA)

[The Independent Eye <bards@independenteye.org>]

Friends-

	I too start to cringe at $18 tickets.  But be real.  Movies are
over $8 now, CD's are between $15 and $18, and those are mass-produced,
mass-marketed items.  To see Robert Lepage in San Francisco right now, the
cheap seats are $30.  On Broadway, The Producers is $100.  Our own show,
Hitchhiking Off the Map, opening next week, is $16.  Production costs don't
come down just because of your subject matter.

	I paid $56 to see Theatre de Complicite in NY, and I felt it was
worth it.  I wish I'd seen them in a structure entirely different from the
buy tickets/sit down/see the show/go home ceremony we're accustomed to, and
cheaper seats would have been nice too.  But they're doing work within the
conventional paradigm and doing it brilliantly and with great commitment;
they need that structure and they use it in a way that brings it alive.

	I share the basics of Erik Ehn's propositions that inspired RAT,
but as long as you're within the conventional structure of theatre as it's
evolved, you're going to be caught, ultimately, in the logic of that
structure.  If you want to get the press notice that will bring in more
people than the dozen friends you could cram into your liviing room, if you
want good lighting and sightlines and acoustics and a place for people to
park, etc. etc., then you add up the figures and set the price you need.
Add to it the oddity of people's expectations:  if we priced our seats at
$10, many people wouldn't come because they'd presume it was amateur stuff.
For the "fringe" audience that goes to see "Cyber-Barbie Meets Godzilla,"
that's not a factor, but those people don't come to see us, or, I imagine,
Howard Zinn.

	Yes, there are a billion valid exceptions to what I'm saying, but
I'm offering pretty much our own experience over the past 31 years.  We've
done interesting experiments with all performances being pay-what-you-will
and gotten larger audiences as a result, but negative consequences too.  I
realize I'm speaking from a different perspective than that of a
25-year-old with a day job who's part of the hot new ensemble in town.  But
most of the time, the structure of theatre-as-we've-known-it claims its
due, and Marx becomes just one more commodity (at what, to me, sounds like
a K-Mart price).

	But to create an entirely different paradigm-  Well, I guess that's
what the RAT conference is about, and it's what we've started trying to
conceive with our Dionysus Project (no, not a staging of The Bacchae),
which I'll try to describe when I know what I'm talking about.  The
promotion, the box office, the seating, the artists' presence, the whole
*occasion* of the event - these make a statement much more powerful (except
on very rare occasions) than the play itself.  That's no new realization:
it's impelled theatrical experiment for the past 100 years.  Which suggests
that it's a big job.  But a worthy mammoth to chase.

	Meantime, if you're going to see Marx in The Theatre, pay $18 and
call it a bargain.

Peace & joy-
Conrad Bishop



Visit The Independent Eye's website
at <http://www.independenteye.org>.





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