RAT 8/16 -- Rat Day Two

[leewochner@movingarts.org (Lee Wochner)]

>>Subject: 8/16 -- Rat Day Two
>>
>>The day starts out eventfully when I blow off the Multiculturalism and
>>Theater seminar at HERE. All right, maybe I'm sliding into the Buchanan
>>Brigade, because I'll be damned sure to be at the Arts Management, Grant
>>Writing, & Schmoozing seminar but I didn't  make it to the Multicultural
>>seminar. I could make the easy excuse -- met a friend for brunch and it ran
>>late; true -- or I could further the level of honesty and say I'm
>>concentrating on doing plays I want to do and on getting people from my
>>neighborhood to come see those plays regardless of their skin color and I've
>>been to this sort of multicultural seminar before and it's usually a dozen or
>>so white people wondering why they can't get blacks into the seats. I'm not
>>chasing any particular audience, I'm trying to help audiences find the plays
>>I like doing. Brunch with the friend turns interesting when she tells me she
>>accidentally posted a private email to a newsgroup where millions can see it,
>>and this email concerned some rather private lives of a rather public
>>celebrity family. I agree with her that she is indeed fucked, that probably
>>everybody in Hollywood read it, and hey, I hear Prague needs playwrights.
>>(Later I hear from Barry Rowell of Peculiar Works Project, NYC that the
>>Multicultural seminar was terrific, and was not entirely white -- in the form
>>of the hosts, Theatre Double, from Philadelphia.)
>>
>>The next seminar is The Electronic Rat, at which 10 of us have very differing
>>opinions about the possibilities of the Internet and how to make the most of
>>those possibilities. Mary Agnes Krell, a freefloating theatre (and digital)
>>artist currently living in Cerritos CA (about which I quiz her later:  "Why
>>do you live in CERRITOS?" Anyway....) is a major force at this, as are Nick
>>Fracaro and Gabriele Schafer of Thieves Theatre, which hosts the Rat webpage.
>>Nick is eager to have his own authority diluted  by getting others to put up
>>Rat webpages. (He's our own George Washington, the only president eager to
>>step down at the end of his second term.) (He's also friendly but fractious,
>>so I'm sure I'll get an email from him saying he's more like Millard Fillmore
>>or something.) I find myself very surprised by Erik Ehn's quietly insightful
>>prescriptions. Erik's work is extremely abstract; Erik's input here is
>>extremely incisive. Comic relief of a sort is provided by C.J. Hopkins of
>>Monkey Wrench Theatre, NYC, who can't decide whether he's a Rat anymore or
>>not (having famously quit in a very public way; check out his center-page
>>photo in this week's Voice, page 49). He keeps saying "You" as in "you guys
>>should do this..." until Erik stops him. "I don't understand what you're
>>saying. You keep saying "you," but you're here, aren't you?" Then Hopkins
>>says what I take to be this:  that he wants to know exactly what Rat is
>>before he'll consider rejoining. (Although I don't hear any clamor for his
>>return, but what do I know?) Since to my knowledge Rat is purposely
>>ambiguous, I don't see Hopkins' return as imminent, but later he delivers a
>>wildly spinning monolog about something or other having to do with Rat and
>>the Internet and he keeps saying "we" -- an implied membership in the
>>fraternity. This confuses me until I decide to pay no attention to what side
>>of the table he sits on. (I guess it's all of them.) In most organizations,
>>not being a member allows one to aim his peashooter at those in the circle.
>>In Rat, the non-organization, most of the people within the circle have their
>>peashooters aimed and ready. So I'm absolutely unsure what's keeping Hopkins
>>out. And that's okay. This isn't a gulag.
>>
>>After two hours of the Electronic Rat -- exciting discussion laced with ideas
>>but no consensus (i.e., ideal Rat) and no gameplan (not ideal) and pretty
>>much no discussion of setting up a playwrights' database beyond the argument
>>of whether or not it would need an editor or be self-editing or should even
>>exist -- the seminar ends. Nick had argued strenuously for a dozen ratpages
>>so people around the world wouldn't look at Thieves Theatre as the authority
>>on Rat, but unhappy realists like myself were brought in by Barry's question
>>to me, "Lee, would you put up a ratpage?" To which I responded: No. I don't
>>have any spare time as it is and I can't commit anyone else from my theatre.
>>My proposal is for what I start calling a "neutral linking page," in which
>>member Rats' pages are linked to from a central site. Those pages can (and
>>will) carry individual assessments of Rat, just as Nick wants. Mary Agnes
>>volunteers to do this, but the idea itself is debated long and hard for no
>>good reason I can see. After the seminar I corner Mary Agnes upstairs and
>>tell her to, in the words of the famous ad campaign, "Just do it." I mean,
>>who's to stop her? There is no authority behind Rat. Half of us were all for
>>this neutral linking page. I'm looking forward to it. Later she tells me
>>she'll try to have it up before the conference ends next week. (Sidenote to
>>Mary Agnes:  please link to Moving Arts at www.primenet.com/~movnarts   .
>> Thanks.)
>>
>>After that I make about a dozen phone calls back to L.A. -- ah, the business
>>of running a theatre. Then I make a decision to thoroughly immerse myself in
>>a mainstream American moment.   I'm going to go to the Waverly Theatre and
>>see WHATEVER movie is playing right then. If it's about rapping killer
>>clowns, I'm in there. Even if it's "Air Bud," I'm in there. It turns out to
>>be "Event Horizon." I recommend doing this to everyone who doubts why he
>>works in the theatre, because I left "Event Horizon" recommitted to theatre
>>like you can't imagine. "Event Horizon" was a skull-rattling experience of
>>the worst kind. It was what the Michael Feingold likes to call an
>>exploding-building movie. Two hours of assault to no good effect. Plus -- and
>>don't hate me, I'm gonna ruin it -- it gets especially cheesy when it turns
>>out that the failed mission to Alpha Centauri didn't get there, it got to,
>>are you ready, HELL!!! (Instant cheesiness.) And then, pure failure of nerve:
>> We've been primed for the whole movie to go to Hell, or have these
>>characters go to Hell, or just Laurence Fishburne go to Hell (which he should
>>after this movie), but nobody does. Except the audience. The people who wrote
>>and directed this movie exist in a failure of imagination, and that's why
>>they couldn't go to Hell. Couldn't imagine it. So they stuck with "help,
>>we're stuck on a scary ship and we can't get off!" Anyone see "Alien?"
>>"Aliens?" Unfortunately for these people, there aren't good go-to-Hell movies
>>for them to copy.
>>
>>I skip dinner ("Event Horizon" sucked the need right out of me) and make it
>>to the East 4th Street Theatre at 7:30 in prep for the Ratso's Ratchet, 4
>>hours of short play readings. Outside I get to meet John Belluso, a
>>playwright I'll be producing this November in Moving Arts' one-act festival.
>>John's in a wheelchair, so I ask him about access to the East 4th, which is
>>down an exterior flight of stairs, then up an interior flight of stairs. He
>>assures me he can walk a little, and friends will carry/walk him. John later
>>turns out to be the hit of the evening -- as a performer. He turns in a
>>star-turn as a neurotic porn writer in "Puppy's Porn" by David Zellnik. The
>>script is funny -- David has obviously spent many research hours reading
>>handjob magazines -- and John is a sensation:  He's got drop-dead timing.
>>I've brought along four pieces from Moving Arts playwrights, all of which go
>>well. It's interesting to see these snippets of longer plays directed out of
>>their context; without knowing the full script, the directors (including
>>Jonathan Pascoe of New York Theatre Workshop, Josh Furst of parenthetical
>>theatre, NYC, Amy Gordon of the Annex, Seattle, and Patricia Ybarra and Sonja
>>Moser, affiliations unknown) and actors make some interesting choices to
>>ground the action. Johnny Pascoe, for example, grounds the action of Nat
>>Colley's "The Writer" in an actor's rolling and smoking a joint. Smart. It
>>adds another level to a spare piece. In fact, the whole evening is smart --
>>lots of good work and, best of all, a lot of fun. We see 38 very different
>>plays (or playlets) and the East 4th is packed for the duration. It's nice to
>>see that, at least, we are an audience.
>>
>>Thanks to Josh Furst and Johnny Pascoe for setting that up and for exposing
>>me to a bunch of good new playwrights.
>>
>>By then it's nearing one, and we head over to Here for the Lounge Party. I
>>wind up talking with Kerri and Ian, who are giving me radically differing
>>viewpoints on theatre in Washington and its potential. They're married, and
>>I'm too smart to get into the middle of this discussion. I even say that.
>>Kerri says I shouldn't worry, that their whole relationship is based on
>>having this argument (or arguments in general, maybe), but I say that may be
>>true, but it isn't based on their having this argument and my getting into
>>the middle of it. I like them, I really really like them. They leave and I
>>start talking to Mary Agnes again, getting the lowdown on Cerritos (evidently
>>the fiance's ancestral home is there) and errata. (A good word for Rats to
>>use, by the way.) The night (morning) winds down, and at about 3 I hitch a
>>ride back to Brooklyn with Nick and Gabby. And then it's an hour of emails
>>and voicemails in L.A. and dreading setting the alarm for everything starting
>>again in just a few short hours.
>>

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