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Produced by The R.Mutt SocietyOpening April 2015

Washington D.C. & New York City

www.rmuttsociety.com info@rmuttsociety.com

An investigation into the tragedy of language

The BaldSoprano

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IndexThe R.Mutt Society:Mission and Manifesto(4-5)Ionesco and The Bald Soprano:A brief context and the subject of our investigation (6-9)Meet the Society:Cast & Crew (10-11)

The Project from a visual perspective: Art concept(12-14)

ConclusionDates and additional information(15)

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Founded in 2013 for the production of the film Seep, R.Mutt Society is a multidisciplinary company based in New York City. Our name comes from Duchamp’s ‘Fountain.’ As the renowned scholar Martin Esslin says in his landmark work The Theatre of the Absurd: “We believe that every work of art must be a statement. It must be a statement addressed in the first person singular to the first person plural, and the latter must retain the right to dissent.”

The R.Mutt SocietyMission and Manifesto

“With his Fountain (1917), Duchamp made the quintessential statement about the history and future of art. Duchamp of course knew the history of art and, given recent trends, where art was going. He knew what had been achieved — how over the centuries art had been a powerful vehicle that called upon the highest development of the human creative vision and demanded exacting technical skill; and he knew that art had an awesome power to exalt the senses, the minds, and the passions of those who experience it. With his urinal, Duchamp offered presciently a summary statement. The artist is not a great creator — Duchamp went shopping at a plumbing store. The artwork is not a special object — it was mass-produced in a factory. The experience of art is not exciting and ennobling — it is puzzling and leaves one with a sense of distaste. But over and above that, Duchamp did not select just any ready-made object to display. He could have selected a sink or a door-knob. In selecting the urinal, his message was clear: Art is something you piss on.”

―Stephen Hicks [Excerpt from Why Art became Ugly (2004).]

The mission of The R.Mutt Society is to vitalize the performance and study of the work of the masters as well as discover new plays from contemporary writers.

The Society seeks to push the conventional limits of artistic expression, to expand the medium and the message, and explore new ways of engaging the audience in our investigations into the human experience. Like having Duchamp’s “fountain” in a museum, we are deeply curious about the shifting perception of art, based on the venue, or frame, in which it is presented. Too often we feel people applaud the undeservering because they are expected to, they laugh because

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In going back to these authors we want to make a clear statement and remind the world that these plays, with their power and depth of meaning, still resonate with our time and the eternal conditions of man in society.

3 BASIC PRINCIPLES OF OUR WORK:

InclusivenessThe R.Mutt Society is formed by an international group of artists (USA, Spain, Mexico, Japan, UK, Argentina, China...)We are open to the collaboration of anyone that wants to share their vision of the world.

SustainabilityThe R.Mutt Society is commited to a creative and economic independence.Constituted as a non-profit with the help of donations, sponsors, and grants, while remaing 100% transparent on the use of our funds. It doesn’t take millions of dollars to put up a play. Our priority must always be to create theater that’s accessible for the people.

Social AwarenessWe understand that theater must be a place where artists and audience members can create a debate around any current issues. Art should pay attention to what’s going on in the world in order to be relevant.

they are cued to, they pretend to understand the incomprehensible because to admit confusion would be an embarrassment. In essence, we seek to discourage mechanical conformity in order to provoke genuine reflection and insight.

Do the clothes make the man? Does the theater make the performance? Do we care more for the facade or the foundation? In 2007 renowned violinist Joshua Bell spent a morning playing for commuters in the halls of the DC metro and went mostly ignored by passersby. Can any place be turned into a theater? What makes a theater? The curtains and the stage, or the relationship between the performers and the audience?

We seek to desanctify the venue of the theater. It is not the industry that is sacred, it is not the venue that is sacred, its not even the play. It’s the experience that’s sacred and it’s the experience that we want to directly engage the audience with.

We are greatly influenced by the works of Ionesco, Beckett, Genet, Pinter, Peter Brook, David Lynch, Werner Herzog, Valle-Inclán, Monty-Python etc... and inspired by the extraordinary work of current companies such as Theater Mitu, Dzieci, Theatre for a New Audience, Siti Company…

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“At the age of one. I was born near Bucharest, but my parents came to France a year later. We moved back to Romania when I was thirteen, and my world was shattered.

I hated Bucharest, its society, and its mores—its anti-Semitism for example. I was not Jewish, but I pronounced my r’s as the French do and was often taken for a Jew,

for which I was ruthlessly bullied. I worked hard to change my r’s and to sound Bourguignon! It was the time of the rise of Nazism and everyone was becoming

pro-Nazi—writers, teachers, biologists, historians . . . Everyone read Chamberlain’s The Origins of the Twentieth Century and books by rightists like Charles Maurras

and Léon Daudet. It was a plague! They despised France and England because they were yiddified and racially impure. On top of everything, my father remarried and his new wife’s family was very right-wing. I remember one day there was a military

parade. A lieutenant was marching in front of the palace guards. I can still see him carrying the flag. I was standing beside a peasant with a big fur hat who was

watching the parade, absolutely wide-eyed. Suddenly the lieutenant broke rank, rushed toward us, and slapped the peasant, saying, “Take off your hat when you see the flag!” I was horrified. My thoughts were not yet organized or coherent at

that age, but I had feelings, a certain nascent humanism, and I found these things inadmissible. The worst thing of all, for an adolescent, was to be different from

everyone else. Could I be right and the whole country wrong? Perhaps there were people like that in France—at the time of the Dreyfus trials, when Paul Déroulède,

the chief of the anti-Dreyfussards, wrote “En Avant Soldat!”—but I had never known it. The France I knew was my childhood paradise. I had lost it, and I was

inconsolable. So I planned to go back as soon as I could. But first, I had to get through school and university, and then get a grant.”

Eugène Ionesco

Eugene Ionesco, The Art of Theater No. 6Interviewed by Shusha Guppy

The Paris Review Fall 1984

No. 93

Ionesco in Paris, Théatre de la Huchette, 1956

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In the backroom of a café on the boulevard Saint-Michel, a group of actors seated around a table roaring with laughter. Nicholas Bataille, a young director, reads aloud the first scenes of a play by the young playwright Eugene Ionesco.

A couple that has nothing left to say to say to each other after twenty years of marriage spends the evening with another couple that no longer recognize each other.

The first scenes were drafted by Ionesco after trying to learn English from the Assimil method called English Without Toil. In the ready-made phrases aligned one after the other he saw an inconsistency in language which became the inspiration for his play. From the beginning, this admirer of Lewis Carroll and other surrealists, knew he wanted to make his play a parody of theatre.

The play’s opening night is May 10, 1950 and the turnout is disappointing. Eugene Ionesco anxiously watches the performance in the wings. The public’s reaction is mixed. Some even insult them, “Who are these fools! They’re mocking us!” However, intellectuals

The playsuch as Camus, Breton, or Queneau are won over. The critics’ reviews are mixed as well. While some such as Jacques Lemarchand have only praise for the play others incinerate it without mercy. Jean-Baptiste Jeener will write, “Meanwhile the play is driving away the theatre’s audience.” The lack of an audience is what forces the play to close after only one month of performances.

Now in its 57th year at Théâtre de la Huchette, the play continues to hold the world record for the show that has been played non-stop in the same theatre. The nearly 17,700 performances have been seen by over 2 million spectators.

We decided to set The Bald Soprano as our first official theater project for many reasons. The most relevant is its unquestionable depth and unique vision of human relations and the meaning of society. We were particularly drawn in by our fascination with language and first-hand experiences with the trials of miscommunication that accompany the clash of cultures. We believe it is a great starting point from which to begin our debate and exploration into the absurdity of the human experience.

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“No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our

thirst for the absolute; it is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa”

―Martin Esslin. The Theatre of the Absurd.

We are particularly interested in exploring the subject of language and communication as the main theme of the play. Our work is mainly focused on that matter. What Ionesco called ‘The Tragedy of Language’ more than half a century ago is still relevant today. The abuse of language through vast quantities of information, the impossibility to process the infinite number of messages thrown to us by the ‘society of information’. Social Media, express journalism (The Huffington Post model of cheap and quick news) makes it even more difficult to separate what piece of information is important and what’s not. Also, today’s instant messaging and other ‘communication’ tools connect us with practically everyone around the globe instantly. Those tools collaborate with us having 24hrs of banal conversations, cheap and fast.

Time dictates the action. The heavy burden of time here represented by the ticking of the clock. It illustrates

the end of the middle class, the death of the Welfare state all around the globe. All of this adds to the creation of a well-worn, grey, suburban social order that is lacking a vivid passion for life. Everything is OK, but nothing is OK. Today’s society resonates with that of the Post-War that the Smith’s and the Martin’s in the play represent. We are in need of good storytelling to keep us not just entertained but to keep us alive.

We also incorporate René Descartes methodic doubt into our work, knowing that his work was a great influence for Ionesco as we have learned from the beginning of our process: to put all beliefs, ideas, thoughts, and matter in doubt will help us to keep on investigating actively and strive for a wider spectrum of work.

“The play is an attack against what Ionesco has called the universal petty-bourgeoisie …the personification of

accepted ideas and slogans, the ubiquitous conformist. The acceptance of ready-made ideas by the masses turn our societies into collections of centrally directed automata”

―Martin Esslin. The Theatre of the Absurd.

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Rebecca Noelle Mason (Mary) is an actor/director living in New York and a graduate of The American Musical & Dramatic Academy. Pervious credits include Joan in Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Lilith in Adam’s Apple, Margaret in Much Ado About Nothing, Brutus in Julius Caesar and other exciting experimental plays. Keep up with Rebecca on her blog www.theactingbusiness.wordpress.com or her Facebook Fan page.

Nanda Valencia (Mrs. Smith/Mrs. Martin) got her BFA degree at the Institute of Artistic Development (IDEA) in Guadalajara, Mexico. Moved to New York City in 2008 and graduated from the New York Film Academy. She’s one of the founding members of The R.Mutt Society. Her theatre credits include: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot; Danny in the Deep Blue Sea; The Glass Menagerie Film credits include: Black Dog Red Dog produced by James Franco. www.fdavalencia.com

Peter John Wallace (Mr.Smith/Mr.Martin) is a NYC-based actor whose work has appeared locally and internationally at the Edinburgh Fringe and the Marionette Festival in Paris. Recent work includes Mercury Fur and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The Cherry Orchard Garage Sale, Mirror Alchemy and The Anger in Ernest and Ernestine (FringeNYC 2014 - The Plinth). Proud alumnus of the Atlantic, L’Ecole Jacques Lecoq, and Fordham University.

Cast

and C

rew

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Franco Pedicini (Mr.Smith/Mr.Martin) Recently seen in Mercury Fur at Under St. Marks. NY credits include: Dracula (Theatre 68); The McTrue Hollywood Story (NY New Works Theatre Festival); and Unreachable Eden (Theater for the New City). Film/TV credits include: Isabella, a pilot for HBO; and the upcoming Vesuvius. Franco is a company member of Theatre 68 and studies at the Stella Adler Studio.

Xavier Galva (The Fire Chief) is a NY actor, playwright, and educator. He is a founding member of The Middle Voice Theater Company. He is currently in residency with The Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and Clubbed Thumb. He is a proud staff member of the MCC Theater. As an Actor he has worked on productions such as Waiting for Lefty, Bus Stop, Caucasian Chalk Circle, Faith Hope and Charity, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, The General of Hot Desire, Bitter Sauce, and 140.

Guillermo Logar (Director) Madrid, Spain in 1987. Filmmaker and theater director. Founder of The R. Mutt Society. Recently directed Mercury Fur at Under St. Marks and the film Seep. Editor-In-Chief of the film magazine La Crítica (www.lacriticanyc.com).

Charles Furst (Production Manager) A recent transplant to NYC, Charles Furst worked as stage manager for Mercury Fur at Under St. Marks this past November and is excited to be working once again with many members of that same team on this current project.

Miwa Ishii (Costume Designer) Designed Anna Christie for Triad Stage, (Greensborough, NC) in 2014, where she will return to design Common Enemy, ( June 2015). Currently a full time tailors assistant and technician for the Broadway costume shop, Eric Winterling Inc., while she continues her career as a designer. www.miwaishii.com

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Conceptual collageCreated by Miwa Ishiiwww.miwaishii.comCostum Design|Set Design

Art Concept

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Poster (final draft)Designed by Paul Zdonwww. paulzdon.comTwo versions: NYC and Washington opening.

Poster

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Excerpts from Anglais Sans Peine-Ionesco’s inspiration-

Inspiration

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Dates and Venues March 24th, 2015The A Train seriesWill perform in the NYC subway A Line from 145th station to JFK Airport. Free Entrance (with Metro Card)

March 25th to 31st, 2015The Harlem series at 2649 Frederick Douglass Blvd.The intimacy of a private apartment in the middle of one of the most diverse and modern neighborhoods in Manhattan will serve as the opening of the play.Capacity of 15 to 20 seats7 performancesDonations accepted at the door.

April, 2015 (Exact date TBA)The French Embassy, Washington D.C. Capacity of 400 seats1 performance onlyFree Entrance

April, 2015 (Exact date TBA)All We Art Studio, Washington D.C.Q&A, Projection of parts of the documentary of the process.Free Entrancewww.allweartstudio.com

April, 2015 (Exact date TBA)New York City Theater5 to 10 performances at a renowned venue. In talks.

More dates and venues soon to come.

For more information visit:www.rmuttsociety.cominfo@rmuttsociety.com

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