In Symphony of Rats, a President of the United States has strange encounters of the phantasmagorical kind. Surrounded by his presidential aides, he plunges into a series of incidents where he meets otherworldly beings, among them a giant rat with a special message.
October 18-20 & 22-23, 2024, the legendary Wooster Group transforms REDCAT in downtown L.A. into a sort of mad laboratory for their latest deliriously trippy production Symphony of Rats, directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, the mater familias of American experimental theater, and her acclaimed collaborator Kate Valk. Widely hailed as one of the world’s most influential and boundary-breaking performance companies, The Wooster Group unleashes a multimedia arsenal at the absurdity of presidential powers and the hilarity of masculine fantasies about control. Featuring singing, stunts, and stupefying multi-screen visuals, this reimagining of a 1988 play by avant-garde guru Richard Foreman is a genre-bending thrill-ride that was written when Ronald Reagan was in the oval office.
Drawing from wide-ranging literary and cinematic sources, including William Blake, D.H. Lawrence, and Charlie Chaplin, it feels more like sci-fi sarcasm than anything seriously political, with a president who receives messages from outer space and a menagerie of aides who scurry in search of a purpose, and occasionally break into song. Moving between the apocalyptic and the mundane, The Wooster Group considers how technology questions what it means to be human. This delightfully smart and entertaining production is the must-see theatrical event of the season.
The first production of Symphony of Rats was staged in 1988 at The Performing Garage, with Richard Foreman directing. The Wooster Group has made an entirely new piece by transposing Foreman’s text into verse and setting it to a multi-layered sound and video score. In their re-imagining of Symphony of Rats, now set in a hybrid spaceship-museum, Wooster assesses the evolution of technology in relation to what it means to be human.
Symphony of Rats
The Wooster Group
REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater), 631 West 2nd St (under Disney Hall)
75 minutes
Fri, Sat, Sun, Tues, Wed at 8:30; Sat & Sun at 3
October 18-20 & 22-23, 2024
for tickets, call 213-972-8001 or visit REDCAT
also plays Nashville December 6-8, 2024, at OZ Arts
for more info, visit The Wooster Group
Text by Richard Foreman
Directed by Elizabeth LeCompte & Kate Valk
Composed by the Company
Performers: Niall Cunningham, Jim Fletcher, Ari Fliakos, Andrew Maillet, Tavish Miller, Michaela Murphy, and Guillermo Resto
Production designed by Elizabeth LeCompte
Sound Design & Music by Eric Sluyter
Video designed by Yudam Hyung Seok Jeon
Lighting designed by Jennifer Tipton & Evan Anderson
Costumes designed by Antonia Belt
Additional Sound & Video: Andrew Maillet
Assistant Director & Stage Manager: Michaela Murphy
Dramaturg: Matthew Dipple
Technical Director: Tavish Miller
Production Manager: Aaron Amodt
Administrative Assistant: Jonathan Hull
Producer: Cynthia Hedstrom
General Manager: Monika Wunderer
Archivist: Clay Hapaz
Niall Cunningham, Ari Fliakos, Jim Fletcher (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Jim Fletcher, Ari Fliakos (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Ari Fliakos, Jim Fletcher (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Michaela Murphy, Niall Cunningham, Jim Fletcher, Ari Fliakos (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Ari Fliakos, Jim Fletcher (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Jim Fletcher, Ari Fliakos (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Jim Fletcher (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Andrew Maillet, Niall Cunningham, Ari Fliakos (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Guillermo Resto (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Ari Fliakos (on screen), Jim Fletcher, Guillermo Resto (photo Spencer Ostrander)
Jim Fletcher, Ari Fliakos, Niall Cunningham, Guillermo Resto (photo by Keetja Allard)
Jim Fletcher, Ari Fliakos (photo by Keetja Allard)
Michaela Murphy (in shadows lower left), Niall Cunningham (obscured), Andrew Maillet (obscured), Ari Fliakos, Jim Fletcher, Guillermo Resto (photo by Keetja Allard)
Jim Fletcher (photo by Keetja Allard)
Niall Cunningham, Andrew Maillet, Ari Fliakos (photo by Keetja Allard)
Ari Fliakos, Jim Fletcher (photo by Keetja Allard)
Ari Fliakos, Andrew Maillet, Jim Fletcher, Guillermo Resto (photo by Keetja Allard)
Jim Fletcher, Ari Fliakos (photo by Keetja Allard)
