In 'Symphony of Rats' revival, a darkness goes underexplored
The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, November 23, 2024


In 'Symphony of Rats' revival, a darkness goes underexplored
In a photo provided by Spencer Ostrander, Jim Fletcher in The Wooster Group’s new production of Richard Foreman’s “Symphony of Rats”, directed by Elizabeth LeCompte and Kate Valk at The Performing Garage in New York.

by Jason Zinoman



NEW YORK, NY.- A president losing grip with reality. Warnings of environmental disaster and apocalypse. An early reference to the COVID vaccine.

The Wooster Group’s revival of the deliriously trippy “Symphony of Rats,” a Richard Foreman play from 1988 that originally starred Kate Valk, who directs this production along with Elizabeth LeCompte, invites dark topical readings. It’s an election year, after all.

So why does this production feel so sweet and escapist?

For one thing, the vaudevillian madness onstage — which juxtaposes twee songs with violent video, highbrow with Hollywood, the mundane with the alien — does not build on its political subject matter. It’s only the surface of a far weirder, digressive production whose obsession is not with the real world but what is underneath. The President (a suitably intense Ari Fliakos) does not stand in for any specific politician, and can come off as an ordinary figure overwhelmed by events. In one of the show’s many dreamy lines, he says, “I seemed to have returned from a profound experience of elsewhereness.”

This is what it felt like to return from a new play by Richard Foreman, who stopped making new shows a decade ago. And for the theater fans who mourn his loss from the cultural landscape, this Wooster Group show operates like a delightful love letter, from one giant of experimental theater to another.

Foreman didn’t break traditional rules of narrative or character so much as invent his own. His surreal shows existed in their own meticulously realized world, whose distinctive designs were bisected by wires that turned the stage into a web. The mood was somehow both menacing and playful, its meaning ineffable and the overall effect entirely singular. Asked in a 2020 interview if he would ever make new work, he balked and then said exactly what you would want the eminence grise of the avant-garde to say: “We are living in decadent times, surrounded by nothing but trash.”

“Symphony” has hints of such flamboyant gloom. The President is presented as a puppet (even his bowel movements are performed with assistance), and the stage is filled with rodents — some small (look out for creepy props), others the size of the wonderful actor Jim Fletcher, whose sharp nails and dramatic flair project an otherworldly deadpan.

The dominant theme here isn’t these animals so much as alternative realities, whether it be an alien world, a “mirror mind,” a lozenge that when eaten takes you — “Alice in Wonderland” style — to a magical land.

That’s not even getting into Tornadoville. LeCompte, whose video-game-like production designs are consistently playful, nods to the Foreman aesthetic: the cluttered set, transparent panes, the wires. But the Wooster Group is more technologically and pop culture savvy. Hyung Seok Jeon’s video work is elaborate and abstract, with references to “Star Wars” or a John Cena movie, and a re-creation of a famously balletic scene from Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” is performed with grace by Fletcher and Fliakos.

There’s a conspiratorial streak in this play that this production doesn’t do much with, a darkness that goes underexplored. Its rodents do not seem to represent exploitation and corruption so much as the assumption that the world is too bizarre for realism, too cracked for happy endings or closure. At the end, Fletcher seems to address the need for some coherence, speaking into a microphone: “Is it possible that all of you out there were participating in a detective story?” Then he adds bluntly: “Here’s what happened.”

Don’t be fooled. What follows is a yarn complemented by a cooking show where we see the torso of a woman turn excrement into chocolate chip cookies — one of several gross-out moments aimed at the gut rather than the head. It’s a show that reminds us that just because art aims to disorient doesn’t mean that it is a puzzle to be solved.



‘Symphony of Rats’

Through May 4 at the Performing Garage, Manhattan; thewoostergroup.org. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.










Today's News

April 15, 2024

Philip Johnson's brick house and its hidden boudoir, exposed

'STUDIO K.O.S. Where we have gone' opens at Morena di Luna, Hove

Vivian Maier's vintage work hits the block at Heritage on May 2

Renaissance portraits that played hide and seek

UK's first large-scale exhibition of work by Outi Pieski on view at Tate St Ives

Ezen Collection of Elite Sovereigns offered at Heritage's CSNS World & Ancient Coins event

Savages! Innocents! Sages! What do we really know about early humans?

How Gen Zers made the crossword their own

Hudson Yards' Vessel sculpture will reopen with netting after suicides

Faith Ringgold, who wove Black life into quilts and children's books, dies at 93

The Fondazione Querini Stampalia pays tribute to Ilya Kabafiov, one year after his passing

Gioele Amaro's fourth solo exhibition with Almine Rech opens in London

International loan exhibition examines early empires of Northern and Eastern Africa and their connection with Byzantium

"Zen and the Open Road" to feature most famous forgotten motorcycle

Solo exhibition by artist, writer and thinker Andrea Fraser opens at The Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare

Tess Korobkin receives the 20th Annual Frost Essay Award

Lawmaker presses luxury designer after reports of exploiting Indigenous workers

Don Wright, editorial cartoonist with a skewer for a pen, dies at 90

Where eclipse seekers flocked and the traffic that followed

Some used to dread readings. Now they sell out.

Is your garden missing something? You may need a large pot (or several).

In 'Symphony of Rats' revival, a darkness goes underexplored

National Art School unveils 'Dale Frank: Growers and Showers'

Netflix's new film strategy: More about the audience, less about auteurs




Museums, Exhibits, Artists, Milestones, Digital Art, Architecture, Photography,
Photographers, Special Photos, Special Reports, Featured Stories, Auctions, Art Fairs,
Anecdotes, Art Quiz, Education, Mythology, 3D Images, Last Week, .

 



Founder:
Ignacio Villarreal
(1941 - 2019)
Editor & Publisher: Jose Villarreal
Art Director: Juan José Sepúlveda Ramírez
Writer: Ofelia Zurbia Betancourt

Attorneys
Truck Accident Attorneys
Accident Attorneys
Holistic Dentist
Abogado de accidentes
สล็อต
สล็อตเว็บตรง

Royalville Communications, Inc
produces:

ignaciovillarreal.org juncodelavega.com facundocabral-elfinal.org
Founder's Site. Hommage
to a Mexican poet.
Hommage
       

The First Art Newspaper on the Net. The Best Versions Of Ave Maria Song Junco de la Vega Site Ignacio Villarreal Site Parroquia Natividad del Señor
Tell a Friend
Dear User, please complete the form below in order to recommend the Artdaily newsletter to someone you know.
Please complete all fields marked *.
Sending Mail
Sending Successful