Rat Sass Archive

Rat Sass Archive

This site is an archive of 2006-2010 blog posts on theatre, art, and culture in the height of what was dubbed the “theatreosphere.” You currently can find Nick Fracaro and his partner Gabriele Schafer at The Hill: A Thieves Theatre Podcast.

Production Dramaturgy and the C-Word

Production Dramaturgy and the C-Word

We’ve been having many post-performance discussions of What She Knew with peers and friends concerning the dramaturgy of the script and the production.  Also I’ve been participating in a related very interesting discussion on production dramaturgy at the listserv at LMDA The script is theory not praxis, relative to the particular elements and context of its production, most especially the ensemble.  One ensemble will realize the dynamics and nuanced relationships within a script vastly different than another.  Neither would necessarily…

Read More Read More

Homer’s Butoh-fu Prologue

Homer’s Butoh-fu Prologue

I am the story itself Exhausted flesh Hung on this walking wandering bone I recite now not To you in the presence of my voice The fourth wall is there Just behind you the generations just beyond you yet to be The true audience watches us gather For the story of this flesh Blind to its fate Blind to its origin Yet the grape seeks to know its vine As the vine seeks to know its wine Flesh most divine…

Read More Read More

Magnificent Opening Night

Magnificent Opening Night

To use the adjective of our playwright/director, our most talented actress was luminous last night. We also received today some kind words and lurid expectations of What She Knew from the impresario extraordinaire himself, Trav S. D., in the current issue of  The Villager. I am luridly expectant at the prospect of seeing “What She Knew” — playwright and critic George Hunka’s retelling of “Oedipus Rex” from Jocasta’s point of view. In this production, the “First of the Red Hot…

Read More Read More

Reseating Perspective

Reseating Perspective

It’s been my privilege to work with playwright/director George Hunka, performer Gabriele Schafer, and the other designers on theatre minima’s debut production of What She Knew. George, Gabriele and I had an especially rewarding collaboration.  We began working on it together in a reading back in February.  I am quite proud of my contribution to the nuanced, commanding performance and production of a vital theatre text. The mise en scene suggested in the script is minimal: White cyclorama, without entrance…

Read More Read More

Driving Home Your Aesthetic

Driving Home Your Aesthetic

David Cote in the Guardian theatre blog is primarily distressing over the recent firing of David Rooney, the chief theatre critic at Variety. He laments the fact that Rooney’s job will now be filled by freelance reviewers, but by the end of the post he has widened his lens to describe the the role of the reviewer in general. We critics, reviewers, consumer reporters are the dung beetles of culture. We consume excrement, enriching the soil and protecting livestock from…

Read More Read More

Community

Community

One’s-Self I Sing One’s-self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form’d under the laws divine, The Modern Man I sing. Behavior lawless as snow-flakes, words…

Read More Read More

How to Play the Diversity Card

How to Play the Diversity Card

The theatrosphere’s talk on diversity has gone from bad to worse. The three shills in the house, linking to each other’s blog posts to keep the thread undead, have been Isaac, 99 seats, and Scott. This comment by KL at Isaac’s correctly summarizes why everyone is jumping off this ship to nowhere. It’s not much of a conversation. It’s mostly one side arguing a principle (we need more diversity!) without really offering any facts. Instead, unsupported suppositions, misleading correlations and…

Read More Read More

Five Questions to/from Nick

Five Questions to/from Nick

A playwright in angst over his legitimacy writes: 1) And why must one only get money from the theatre to count as a playwright? 2) Is it somehow sinful to write for television or film and earn paychecks as well? 3) If being a playwright is what led to being hired on a show, then why doesn’t that count as earning a living from being a playwright? A parable of sorts. I fell in love and married one of the…

Read More Read More