Re: New to RAT Communique`/Jonoh/John/Audie

[P1d2o3b@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/23/99 1:11:57 PM EST, MFarkash@aol.com writes:

In response to Michael's points, sharpest that struck me exerpted below:

I just read Michael's post after 
1) a dialogue with self defined Marxist academics who are in their majority 
anti Soviet (defined as anti Bolshevik, Lenin, and Stalin) because they are 
pro Democracy and Free Speech, who had just banished someone from the 
discussion 

2)  discovering Rev. Billy's Church of Stop Shopping performance at the 
Disney Store in Times Square <http://www.revbilly.com/>

 3)an off putation by some otherwise new friends because their theatre 
interest came packaged with the politics of  personalities with whom I have 
had negating sectarian encounters in my lengthening past, and 

4)Erik's invitation to Iowa which included this:  "All of us work with strong 
wills to bring a private sense of truth to a common art.  We often work to 
the point of exhaustion, confused about the identity of our communities, our 
proper relationship with them, and our level of effectiveness.  Sometimes our 
public successes represent a perverse dislocation of our original 
inspirations.  These difficulties manifest vividly where body and spirit are 
further challenged by raids, sanctions and deep coercion.  Barter and 
cunning, strenth in exile, precision in chaos, rehearsal in a culture where 
authentic performancer (enactment, expression) is repressed...are disciplines 
I need in my life-school"

What I think is: authentic performers have to make a living and there is a 
dramaturical
tradition and discipline which affects effectiveness.  This is where most of 
you are and I am grateful to you.  But what has revived and attracted me back 
into this RAT (Real Art Theatre) community (there, I joined, ooowee, shiver)* 
are the two new outermost prongs:  

this email technology, which permits and disciplines what we sensed, 
promised, and failing to realize [speaking for myself alone]slinked off 
betrayed and betraying: collective improvisational script creation  ala the 
automatic dada stuff we did in our youth.(I'm still frustrated not to see  a 
"script" emerge before my eyes as we "post")   

And the other side, the emerging recognition [via, and despite, their very  
expropriation and commodization, of the site [and occasion] specific   
techniques and disciplines  of the collectively improvised performances we 
staged to "say" what was not yet sayable in the mediums of journalists, 
scientists, academics, or politicians  is the Rat Route, [ art called theatre 
road forward].

I doubt that email and cell phones make real art any safer than it ever was, 
but I 
am thrilled and optimistic.  I am violating eDiscipline by sending such 
gruesome
syntax.  But Rats are  tolerant and deserve  Millennial affirmation I know 
won't be sent later if I store to edit.

-- good W.I.T.C.H.** from the South 
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------
Michael wrote:

>  Great points from all of you about theatre audiences, et.
>  
>      FILM
rather go to the worst  film than a bad play. [a bad play]makes him angry 
that he wasted his time. 
>      CAN'T UNDERSTAND THEATRE
>      The reasons that keep [all] people [I know]from alternative 
productions 
 inconvenient. TV and film are more accessible. And hey, when you get 
>  there, what if it's bad,  
>  
>      The theatre could be part of the social dialogue if we all lived in 
> small 
>  towns.
>      PERSONALITY
>     people who prize personalities over the work -- That's showcase 
thinking -- the work, the play, the performance, >  ought to be paramount.  
>      LESS WORK
>      let's do LESS work, and 
>  better work.  I understand the need to 
>  work. But not to submit it for reviews, unless ...
>  
>      AUDIE HAS THE MODEL
>      (Maybe 
> even 
>  bring in outside people who aren't afraid to tell the truth.)   See if 
it's 
>  worthy.
>  
>  Michael


 
**cf Schechner on drama and religion. Mystery plays ancient and medieval link 
So. Baptists who surrender resistance to the call to come forward for full 
body out of body  immersion tingles.
*Women Improvising To Change History