THE THEATRE OF THE RIDICULOUS

CHARLES LUDLUM

Ludlam made his first New York stage appearance in 1966 at the Play-House of the Ridiculous, a group formed by playwright Ronald Tavel and director John Vaccaro. After appearing in two productions there, Ludlam formed his own troupe, the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, which at first performed in Greenwich Village bars and other venues, and began writing his own plays.

In his plays, Ludlam works to decenter the expectations of various cultural groups, including heterosexuals, advocates of high art, and those involved in what he considered to be a sometimes too pretentious avant garde theater. To do so, his work employs camp representations of traditional works. For example, Stage Blood (1975) is a revision of Hamlet; Bluebeard (1970) is based on H. G. Wells' Island of Dr. Moreau; and Der Ring Gott Farblonjet (1977) was inspired by Finnegan's Wake.

Ludlam's plays also draw on cultural artifacts that have long attracted a gay camp following, especially classic films. One of his most famous impersonations was his Norma Desmond in John Vaccaro's production of Screen Test (1965), his first public drag perfomance, and later in his own Big Hotel (1966).

His plays and performances also depend on many elements of gay camp, including--in addition to drag--a mixture of high and low culture in a single play or performance, the recycling of cultural icons and stereotypes, and a flair for the overdone with stylistic elements taken to an extreme.

Ludlam's plays may seem chaotic when compared even to other forms of avant garde theatre; however, his collected prose in Ridiculous Theatre: Scourge of Human Folly shows a highly developed intellect behind the madness of the plays, which--as he says in his "Manifesto: Ridiculous Theatre, Scourge of Human Folly"--never lose sight of "the seriousness of the theme" despite the "farcical manner" in which they are produced.

Although early in his career he often lived in poverty, Ludlam began to receive acclaim by 1969, when he received the Village Voice Obie Award for The Grand Tarot. During his career he received several other Obies, as well as awards, fellowships, and grants from the Ford Foundation, the Association of Comedy Artists, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others.

Perhaps his most famous role was the title character of his own version of Camille, which debuted in 1973, but which was revived numerous times. In this role, Ludlam established himself as a drag performer of uncommon polish and sensitivity. He was so consummate a performer that even though he wore a low-cut dress that exposed his hairy chest the audience soon forgot that he was a man.

In 1975, Ludlam met Everett Quinton, who became his lover and colleague. He joined the company in 1976. The partners starred in the original production of Ludlam's best known play, The Mystery of Irma Vep (1984).

By 1991, The Mystery of Irma Vep, a spoof of Gothic horror films that features cross-dressing, werewolves and other monsters, quick costume changes, actors playing multiple roles in quick succession and sometimes simultaneously, had become one of America's most frequently produced plays.

Ludlam was diagnosed with AIDS late in November of 1986 and died May 28, 1987. Quinton succeeded him as head of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company.

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THE THEATRE OF THE RIDICULOUS

(According to Ronald Tavel, http://ronald-tavel.com/beginning.htm)


(2) : Ronald Tavel at 27 St. Marks Place, NYC, during the writing of his first screenplay, Tarzan of the Flicks, 1962

Ronald Tavel invented the designation Theatre of The Ridiculous to identify the vision and styles of what would be, to date, his more than forty produced stage plays.

While still in college and studying the Theatre of The Absurd, he asked himself, What could come next? A theatre of The Ridiculous? That mode in its satiric mood would shortly thereinafter manifest itself in a classroom CHRISTMAS SHOW, which his playwriting instructor ordered him to compose. The latter was so outraged by the production that he came close to flunking Tavel in playwriting.

When his first professional stage production, the two one-act plays, SHOWER and THE LIFE OF JUANITA CASTRO, were getting set to premiere on July 29, 1965 at the Coda Gallery on East 10th Street near Fourth Avenue in New York, Tavel felt the need for an overall title for the evening, since American audiences then tended to prefer a single experience as opposed to unrelated short pieces. He immediately decided that the name, The Theatre of The Ridiculous, would suit these one-acts and wrote a one-line manifesto for the program to justify his choice: We have passed beyond the absurd: our position is absolutely preposterous.

The plays opened to large crowds and positive reviews and were moved to a


(3) : The famous double-frame portrait from Warhols Fifty Fantasticks, 1964
commercial venue, the St. Marks Playhouse, on Second Avenue, in September of 1965.

When loosely the same group of players, under John Vaccaros direction, and using the identification, Theatre of The Ridiculous, opened their third play in April 1966, Ronald Tavels THE LIFE OF LADY GODIVA, in a flight-up hall at 13 West 17th Street, the city objected to a space more than three steps above the pavement being called a theater. So Tavel, making capital of the pun, changed the companys name to Play-House of The Ridiculous.

In the autumn of that year, the companys next production, the Tavel one-acts, SCREEN TEST and INDIRA GANDHIS DARING DEVICE, became a hit, a cause celebre, and an international scandal (see, The New York Times, March 29, 1967, p. 37, Foreign Minister, etc. by Joseph Lelyveld; and The Village Voice, March 9, 1967, Appeal to Washington by Don McNeill). A division in the group began to surface in the matter of how to handle this affair.


(4) : The wicked smile
GORILLA QUEEN is the craziest play I have ever seen, and that includes other plays by Ronald Tavel. It is beyond art, beyond obscenity, beyond belief.
-Michael Smith, The Best of Off-Off Broadway (E.P. Dutton & Co., New York: 1969)

Tavel then set about to display his full playwriting skills, but when he offered a long and elaborate work, GORILLA QUEEN, to the company, Vaccaro felt he couldnt direct it. Instead, Harvey (or Doc Harv) Tavel directed his brothers one-act KITCHENETTE and a revival of JUANITA in January and February 1967 as a replacement, and a quick way to pay the groups bills. This production earned the Play-House its first Obie Award (for Best Actor for Eddie McCarty). Then the brothers left the Play-House and Tavel offered GORILLA QUEEN to the Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square. The Church opened the epic as its Easter presentation to a rave review from the NY Times and sold it in three days to a commercial run at the Martinique Theater. Tavel showcased another epic, ARENAS OF LUTECIA, at the Judson the following spring. This co-starred the statuesque beauty, Mary Woronov, and Edie McCarty.


(5) : Doc Harv (left) and Ron Tavel on the Circle Line, NYC, 1965
In the meantime, Vaccaro turned to the actor Charles Ludlam for a playwright, and when these two quarreled, Ludlam withdrew and formed a group called the Gloxina. Dissatisfied with that name and at an imaginary loss, Ludlam returned to the Tavel label, Ridiculous. He renamed his group Ridiculous Theatrical Company, apparently never seeing the self-deprecation in using the technical noun as an adjective.

Doc Harv Tavel then directed Tavels one-act play VINYL at the Caffe Cino (1967) with dancer Ray Edwards, singer Mike St. Shaw, and Mary Woronov in the role of the sadistic physician. Ronald Tavels next full-length, a musical called BOY ON THE STRAIGHT-BACK CHAIR, was presented commercially at the prestigious American Place Theater (1969) where it won an Obie Award for Outstanding Achievement in Playwriting.


(6) : Tavel getting into makeup for the role of the director in The Life of Juanita Castro (actress Lola Pashalinski in background), 1967
Another Obie Award for Best Play went to BIGFOOT (1972, at Theater Genesis, in the St. Marks on the Bouwerie Church, Second Avenue and 10th Street). This work is Tavels only formal tragedy. He and many critics consider it his finest play and it earned him the position of First Artist-in-Residence at The Yale University Divinity School in 1975. He was reappointed to that post in 1977 for his lyrical drama, GAZELLE BOY. Both BIGFOOT and GAZELLE BOY extend the meaning, subject matter, and dramatic scope of The Ridiculous.


(7) : Norman Glick and Doc Harv in revival of Tavels Shower, 1968
Ronald Tavel never registered the label, Theatre of The Ridiculous, at City Hall, believing that if he alone used it, it might well be forgotten. But he did not anticipate that the three or more companies (including one in Paris), which subsequently adopted the label, would merely imitate some of the stylistic, surface qualities of his early satiric stage work: and never probe their, or his, later themes mythic, religious, political, or otherwise.

Other accounts of the coining of the phrase, Theatre of The Ridiculous, appear on the Internet and in various publications. But any account differing from the above is patently false.