You’ve
been out in it. The heat. That blister-raising, synapse-frying Austin August heat. It’s ghastly. It presses on you like some
mammoth sweaty gator perched on your back. It chars the little hairs on your
arms and neck. It makes pit bulls weep. It can drop a Dallas Cowboy quicker’n
you can say “subpoena.” I mean, it’s God’s Own Furnace. What kind of twisted
soul willingly goes out in that kind of heat? Or more to the purpose, what kind
of twisted soul willingly comes to this town when it’s hip deep in this
swelter? Mad dogs? Englishmen? Quentin Tarantino?
Try raving RATs.
Thursday marks the start of the Austin RatRave in the Heat Wave, a
weekend of workshops, performances, play readings, arguments, lengthy meals,
laughter, parties, gossip, drinking, and, if anyone thinks of it, bowling, all
in the name of something called RAT. What RAT is depends on who’s talking about
it. Some folks consider it a movement, some a network of like-minded artists,
some the savior of an art form dying under the weight of its own ossified
institutions. It may or may not be any of these things, and the folks who have
taken part in what have come to be called “RAT conferences” are pleased to
debate the matter with you. What is most clear about RAT is that it is about
theatre and at least in part about bringing together people who believe in
theatre. That is why this weekend will see some 50 theatre artists from all
across the country joining another 20 or 30 theatre artists locally to “rave”
about their art in our heat.
In a way, it figures that the theatre artists would wind up here in the thick
of our most brutal season. The musicians — they get this town in March; they
get to flock here for the SXSW music conference right when spring is settling
in and the temperatures are cracking the 80s for the first time of the year.
But then, musicians have a leg up on theatre artists these days. They face
struggles in the pursuit of their art, sure, but at least when they face
whatever hardships they may, they can take some comfort in the knowledge that
music is still a form with some currency in our society. People listen to it.
They talk about it. It concerns them. Not to put too fine a point on it, but
who in America today gives a rat’s ass about theatre?
Well, obviously, the RATS.
But it’s often hard to tell who else. When the number of empty seats far
outnumber the ones with patrons in them, when the amount of media attention is
anemic compared to what’s accorded athletics, when the financial support dries
up faster than a puddle in West Texas, it sure makes theatre seem like a big
yawn to most of the country. Which is hardship enough for those producers who
have grand auditoriums in which to stage theatre and budgets in the six-figure
range or better, but it’s doubly tough for the smaller producers, the
independent companies and individual artists who work in spaces of 150 seats or
fewer, who may be juggling their artistic efforts with fulltime jobs, who may
be getting by only by the grace of their credit card limits. They’re putting
far, far more sweat and spirit into what they do than they ever get back in any
sort of financial or emotional compensation, and, laboring as they often do in
geographic and economic isolation, they can burn out quickly — as artists, as
contributors to a community, and as human beings.
RAT has become a way to counter the isolation for these Lone Rangers of the
stage. As conceived by playwright Erik Ehn under the name Art Workers Hostelry,
it was to be an organization uniting purposefully small, independent or
experimental theatres all across the land, giving these struggling entities a
structure through which they could share art — scripts, productions, artists
— and ways of working, and most importantly, draw strength from each other.
His initial description of it in an essay for the Yale journal Theater led to a meeting of “small broke theatres” on the campus of the University of
Iowa in December, 1994. It was a weekend of these groups eating and drinking
and discovering each other, of swapping “dirty trade secrets and talking about
our personal problems,” as Karl Gajdusek of San Diego’s Theatre E remembers.
From it came a desire on part of these artists to strengthen their ties to each
other and a name for the network or movement or loose confederation that they
were developing: RAT. Even though it lent itself to all sorts of handy
acronyms, everything from “Regional Alernative Theatres” to “Raggedy Ass
Theatres,” the word seemed to belong more to itself, as a rough image of who
these companies were and what they did: scavengers outside the system, filching
what they needed to get by, building an army of many out of something small and
hidden.
Word about the Iowa conference spread, and before long a second conference was
organized, and then a third. In August of 1995, the Annex Theatre hosted a
three-day gathering at their second-story space in Seattle. It continued the
conversation begun in Iowa, with many new voices joining in, and added to the
mix scam sessions, seminars on the realities of producing big theatre on the
cheap: how to develop extravagant effects without expending resources, how to
keep your company afloat. On Leap Day weekend this year came the Minneapolis
conference, described by co-host Wendy Knox as “a mid-winter think tank.”
Smaller in size than Seattle, it enabled those RATs who had barely gotten
acquainted at the larger event to gain a deeper sense of each other as artists
and colleagues. As Gaby Schafer of Thieves Theatre, says, “It was this
oft-neglected conference that Thieves Theatre found to be especially successful
in what it perceives to be another of RAT’s potentials: finding particularly
like-minded individuals who challenge and inform the specific work you do,
something that Thieves found in Frank Theatre, for example. We initially met
Frank at the Seattle conference, but only in Minneapolis did we find our common
ground.”
An Austin get-together was only a matter of time. At the first gathering in
Iowa, five of the 20 companies represented were from Austin. Two of those
groups also made it to the Seattle conference, along with a handful of other
Austinites. In an electronic dialogue about RAT that has continued in e-mail
messages and on the inevitable RAT web site (http://www.rat.whirl-i-gig.com),
Salvage Vanguard Theater’s Jason Neulander has been a prominent voice. As
Mitchell Gossett of the Los Angeles theatre company Bottom’s Dream puts it,
Austin companies have “always maintained a high profile in the alliance.
There’s a lot to be learned from Austin.”
The idea of congregating here at a time when the air scorches one’s lungs was
not as certain, but once the proposal to meet here in August was put forth in
the e-mail forum, it gathered momentum so quickly that it seemed to make a kind
of twisted sense. If you’re going to meet in Minnesota in February, why not
Texas in August? Given the kinds of challenges that RATs routinely put up with,
it’s just another brick in the wall.
Beginning in April, a small gang of Austin artists, led by Neulander and
Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre’s Vicky Boone — the two local veterans of both the
Iowa and Seattle conferences — started developing a plan for what was being
called the “RatRave.” The name sprang from a desire on the part of a number of
RATs to get away from what they feared was becoming a predictable — and
possibly even deathly dull — format for the RAT gatherings: get in a room and
talk, talk some more, and then talk some more. It wasn’t that these folks
disputed the value of the dialogue at the previous conferences or were looking
to stifle any future conversations; it was that they were ready to get off
their duffs and do some work. And to see the other RATs work. The plain
geography of the situation was such that most RATs lived too far from each
other to be able to see any of the theatre they actually produced. This was a
gap in their ability to share their ways of working. The Austin RATs felt it
was important for them to give those traveling here a way around that.
They solicited ideas for workshops, invited RATs to bring plays to read and
works in progress to rehearse. The response was, as it frequently is with RAT,
immediate. If they don’t like something, RATs will tell you with a speed that
will singe your ears. And sometimes when they like something, they’ll tell you
that quickly, too. This idea they liked, and they flooded Neulander’s e-mailbox
with offers. The final schedule includes 16 workshops, ranging from the
straightforward (“How to Produce on Someone Else’s Set,” from Rosalyn Rosen of
Austin) to the esoteric (“Pseudofinal Dance and Marginal, Out-of-Arena
Pseudostart Dances Rehearsal,” from David Chikhladze of the Republic of
Georgia); the philosophical (“What We Talk About When We Talk About Poverty,”
by Mr. Ehn) to the infiltrational (“Whim Vendors,” from Thieves Theatres’
Schafer and Nick Fracaro). A half-dozen readings are also on tap. (Note: All
RatRave activities are free and open to the public. For a recorded schedule of
events, call 478-3554. For updates, call 474-5926.)
This new thrust in RAT gatherings has generated reactions as varied as one
might expect from such a bunch of devotedly iconoclastic artists. Gajdusek
expects the Austin confab will be great. “We tried doing it by the book and
wound up frustrated. I think that people will be much more willing to just get
up and walk somewhere more interesting if the conversation turns dull,” he
says. Moreover, he adds, “People are bringing work. That means I get to walk
around and see work by people I want to see work from.” Wendy Knox, who’s
coming down from Minneapolis, is more guarded: “I’m feeling mixed about the
Austin gig. I’m not at all interested in the weather, a similar feeling to
those who stayed away from the Leap Day Fest. I’m not particularly interested
in `workshops,’ although perhaps my mind will be changed. ” Still, she adds, “I
am interested in seeing the few folks that I connected with in Seattle, and in
meeting others. I look forward to interesting conversation, discussion,
arguments, and beer. ”
Knox’s words provide substantial clues as to why RATs are willing to travel
cross-country and brave even a blazing Austin August to be together. Even when
there are differences of opinion about when or where an event will happen, what
activities are scheduled, or the direction of a discussion, there is an
undercurrent of shared interest, of a bond, and something to be gained.
Sometimes it may be profound; Mitch Gossett says, “Every time I go to a RAT
conference, I learn something that propels my theatre in huge ways. The RAT
conference has been the most significant development to my theatre since I
decided to form it. The ideas and inspiration and connections have completely
turned my theatre around.” Sometimes it’s less profound, but equally
meaningful. When asked what he hopes to get out of the RatRave, Gajdusek
replies, “Three interesting artistic experiences, four discussions, one kiss,
two hangovers, and seven anecdotes worthy of telling to non-theatre people.”
There’s something to that, and if the RatRave can provide as much to all its
attendees, it can be deemed a major success. There is no last word on RAT —
how could there be given the varying attitudes within it and the persistent
insistence on its mutability? — but some word is needed for the end of this
article, so we’ll turn again to Karl Gajdusek, who offers a savvy reflection on
what RAT is and is not. “My take on RAT is fairly antagonistic to definition
and purpose,” he admits. “RAT is not my community service, not my church, and
not my home. When it’s good, it’s a fast-paced salon for expression by a bunch
of choose-to-be-broke, Nineties-competitive, mean and witty, bitchy and
delicious artists. RAT should not be boring and RAT should not have a use. RAT
may change the world, if it can just avoid trying to.” n The RatRave in the Heat Wave will be held Aug 8-11 at The Public Domain and
other downtown spaces.
This article appears in August 9 • 1996 and August 9 • 1996 (Cover).