Re: RAT More High Cheeze

[Leon Martell <belon@ucla.edu>]

>Here at last is a transcription of the Red Team’s response to the
>High Cheeze Challenge. The Challenge was to create a theater piece
>at  the Los Angeles Theater Center that:
>
>--had 3 distinct sections
>--contained a surprise
>--had a musical element
>--used the line “If I don’t kill that rat he’ll die” (Beckett)
>--involved the audience in some way.
>
>Also, each team was given a secret, “impossible “ stage direction
>to fulfill.  The Red Team was told that we had to “destroy the
>universe.”
>
>The Red Team’s effort was created and performed by Frankie Cohen,
>Leon Martell, Diane McGee and Julia Pearlstein. We didn’t win, but
>we lost magnificently!
>
>RED TEAM HIGH CHEEZE SCRIPT:
>
>The audience assembles in the lower lobby of  the Los Angeles
>Theater Center, and is lead down to the sub-basement dressing rooms
>by Melody, LATC's House Manager.   They gather outside a door
>marked "No Admittance", in an area that has been festooned with
>balloons and streamers, as for a child's birthday party.
>
>Frankie Cohen, costumed as a young girl, greets them.
>
>FRANKIE :  We're going to a party.  I'm your guide.  Don't worry,
>I'll take care of you.  Don't let it bother you that I'm not old
>enough to buy  beer...or drive...or see most movies....and they
>won't let me read   "Flowers of Evil"  or "Huckleberry Finn"  or
>"The Naked Lunch".   But I   do know how to have fun!  And if you
>want to have fun, just be quiet   and DO WHAT I SAY!  (she giggles)
>
>Frankie opens the door and hands the end of the guide rope to the
>audience.  Audience members, holding on to the rope, are ushered
>down a narrow, dimly lit flight of stairs.
>
>FRANKIE:  Come on!  Shhhh!  Stay against the wall, single file and
>stop at   the bottom of the stairs.  Stay crunched!
>
>Frankie guides the audience to the base of the stairs, where they
>are met by Diane McGee, dressed in post-apocalyptic vagabond-chic.
>Diane stands in the mouth of a tubular tunnel which is about 7’
>high and 40’ long.  Between the stairs and the mouth of the tunnel
>there is a small landing with an open grate.  Flowing beneath the
>grate (well, trickling, anyway...) is the Los Angeles River --
>though it looks more like a sewer.
>
>FRANKIE: Here's all my friends for the party.
>
>DIANE:  Party?  It's a parting.
>
>FRANKIE:  Oh.  (to the audience) This is the LA River.  Be careful
>crossing.    We don't know where it's been.
>
>As the audience crosses the river, Diane  marches them into the
>tunnel, shushing them and herding them up against the curved wall.
>She sprinkles them with salt and pepper.
>
>DIANE:  It’s not a parting;  it’s a departure.
>
>An operatic aria is heard as the audience is ushered to a  hidden
>stairwell at the tunnel’s end.  In this stairwell a flickering
>fluorescent lamp illuminates a macabre tableaux-vivant:  Leon
>Martell (the bewhiskered Rat King, his tail lashing the air above them)
>is noisily performing
>(simulated) cunnilingus on Julia Pearlstein (the bedraggled Rat
>Queen), who is hanging upside-down and spread-eagle on the
>railings.
>
>JULIA:  (bellowing between groans) I'm not hungry now!  Go away!
>
>The audience (more than 50 people!) gets shooed along by Diane and
>Frankie, until everyone has filed past the tableaux and returned to
>the tunnel, where they are huddled against the walls as in an
>air-raid drill.
>
>DIANE:  She always loses her appetite when he eats.
>
>The music ends as the Rat Queen reaches an anti-climax.
>
>JULIA:  (emerging from the stairwell) If I don't kill that rat
>he'll die.
>
>Laughing grotesquely, she traipses through the tunnel to the
>entrance.
>
>DIANE: I think it's time I let you all know:
>   You were led here to satiate the Rat Queen,
>   but it appears she's already been.
>   Ah well, a rat by any other name...
>   would smell... the same.
>
>JULIA:  Now why can't I get a grant for that?
>
>Leon emerges from the tunnel dressed in flashy checkered polyester
>disco-wear.  He sports whiskers and a bull-whip tail.
>
>LEON:  Because this isn't TCG; it's the RAT conference.
>
>JULIA:  I'll have to think about that. Wait right here.  Don't
>move!
>
>Julia pulls the rip-cords on an auto-inflating Mae West-style
>floatation device she swiped from an airplane and disappears up the
>stairs.
>
>LEON:  Do you know why women love rats so much?  I can tell you.
>          It’s our inquisitive noses.
>          It’s our relentless effort.
>          It’s our endless numbers.
>
>DIANE: You're wrong.  Women hate rats.
>
>LEON:  Why?
>
>DIANE:  It’s your naked tails.  Something about a naked tail makes
>a
>        person...squeemish.
>
>Frankie has been playing with a wind-up toy rat.  She releases it
>and it scampers about.
>
>FRANKIE:  I can do a walkover.  Spot me.
>
>DIANE: What does that involve?
>
>FRANKIE: You are all responsible for my safety no matter what I do.
>
>Frankie does 2 walkovers in a row!
>
>DIANE: You could have a career in this town.
>
>FRANKIE:  Ya think?
>
>The Rat Queen reappears.
>
>JULIA:  I've decided to let you all go.  But I must tell you:
>time  underground  is           different.  Since you've been here
>the universe has  been destroyed.
>
>DIANE:  That's what happens when you go into a theater.
>
>LEON:  All the buildings have fallen.
>
>DIANE: The media has been unplugged.
>
>FRANKIE:  I can do a walkover!
>
>DIANE & JULIA:  Not now!
>
>LEON:  But the Rat Queen is merciful....
>
>JULIA:  I have rebuilt the universe.  Replicated it as it
>was....but with a   few changes.      Go on up and see if you can
>spot them.
>
>FRANKIE: That's all, folks.  You don't have to go home, but you
>can't stay   here.
>
>The audience is ushered out of the tunnel and up the stairs to
>freedom and fresh air.
>
>THE END

Julia,
	The only thing I might add is the "his tail lashing the air above
them" reference (see Rat king description)  Thanks for putting this
together.

						Leon