RAT The new questions are the old questions.

["mnolnykt@carbonbasedfilms.com" <mnolnykt@carbonbasedfilms.com>]

the new problems are the old problems.

"The visitors have left. I am sitting alone in the studio. The Allendys came with Antonin Artaud.
"Artaud. Lean, taut. A gaunt face, with visionary eyes. A sardonic manner. Now weary, now fiery and malicious.
"The theater, for him, is a place to shout pain, anger, hatred, to enact the violence in us. The most violent life can burst from terror and death.
"He talked about the ancient rituals of blood. The power of contagion. How we have lost the magic of contagion. Ancient religion knew how to enact rituals which made faith and ecstasy contagious. The power of ritual was gone. He wanted to give this to the theater. Today nobody could share a feeling with anybody else. And Artaud wanted the theater to accomplish this, to be at the center, a ritual which would awaken us all. He wanted to shout so people would be roused to fervor again, to ecstasy. No talking. No analysis. Contagion by acting ecstatic states. No objective stage, but a ritual in the center of the audience."

A ritual in the center of the audience. This is from Anais Nin's diary, March, 1933. So many things that changed the world had not happened yet. And still, this so similar anguish, about people sharing feelings, about theater, about the role of the theater. Nin mentions Artaud's performance in Dreyer's film Joan of Arc. Not yet a conflict of interest.

Later:
"[Artaud] is poor. He is in conflict with a world he imagines mocking and threatening. His intensity is brooding, rather terrifying."

This is my secret vision of myself. The actor. My Great God, is someone marking my words? Is there a documentarian to take notice?

I hear you, RAT. I feel you, RAT. I twitch my whiskers.

LOS ANGELES: I want to go to Berkeley on June 1. I want to see this Ehn person. I'll rent a van. Who's up? Who's poor? Who's brooding with terrifying intensity? Who's weary, who's now fiery and malicious? I am, said the cat. I am, said the pig.

I am, said the RAT.

No, said the little red hen; I'll do it, all by myself.

And she did.

xox
rebecca

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