Nimrod[An interview with American theater producer, Joe Rosato]

by Adrian Ioniţă

click pentru versiunea română

"Once you obtain a certain level of authority you can't let it go, and this is a lesson that I'm slowly realizing, cause when I try to throw most of it out the

window and express to people that I might be really just as confused as they think they are, that people stop listening to you or communicating with you,

because no one wants to be lining up behind anybody who doesn't at least give you the illusion that they have a direction..."

[Joe Rosato]

[Self-portrait © 2008 Joe Rosato]

Adrian Ioniţă: I followed your evolution for several years and what always puzzled me was the fact that all your creativity and fertile ideas are sitting in a private basket. It is as if you decided to be your own public. For me and the few privileged who entered your world, seemed at the time, a huge waste of energy which probably never ever will be recovered.. It even crossed my mind that, shying away from the public eye is in fact an exercise for some sort of accumulation of power and wit for what may become in an after-life, the feeding of our future spirit. If immortalized, that moments may have been celebrated like avant-garde. I see it today as an invisible and private process, done without the ambition to change a set of existing values

or rules, but mostly with the humility and awareness that genuine acting is a private moment of interrogations. In times in which the fabric of our society is so worn down by power, money and consumerism such a work seems obsolete.

Joe Rosato: To "open new cultural or political pathways" causes a chill to go up my spine. Is the definition of avant-garde from Wikipedia. I am willing to admit that there might be confusion with the way I unveil my thoughts, but the slowness is neither spite nor an attempt to be difficult. The idea of avant-garde sounds willful. Like I'm trying to - for my own purposes - to force the world into a new direction. Wiki tries to narrow in on what "avant-garde" really means, which tells me that it is a growing definition. But I do not want to swear allegiance to this symbol, I have no identity with any of those who were part of it. I'm ambitious I think, but my current slow entry into the theater world is that I do not know how to be authentic in what seems to me a cutthroat competition for attention, for attentions sake. Everyone is getting on boxes, certain of what the problem is in the world. I want to address issues, but feel lost in a maze. I think I've been trying very hard and working in a vacuum.. but that is changing.

[16th century painting of the Babel Tower by Hendrick III van Cleve]

Adrian Ioniţă: If I set aside your acting career, I may say that Nimrod, your newly born theater production company, broke a long exercise of private interrogations and raised it to a different level. Why now and why Nimrod?

Joe Rosato: Nimrods means rebellion. Nimrod means idiot. Nimrod was also the king, during the period when the Tower of Babel was built and I've always liked that story because is so contemporary in many ways. God punished the people because they used their imaginations to technically improve their existence. Why!? I think that on a certain level God gets jealous because he likes being the master over people and sees their actions as a threat to his power. He caused confusion among people by producing in them diverse languages, so they could not understand one another. Is this not happening today? We are improving our existence on this earth by leaps and bounds, while at the exact same time indiscriminate bombs are exploding all around the world. God seems to like factions! God should be grateful for Satan! There is a fear that education levels are dropping, that the environment is dying, that someone will nuke another out of sheer spite. The wind of the world is picking up speed, and yet communication and action seem to be on separate paths. Imagination vs destruction! I could talk for hours but this is a quick overview.

Adrian Ioniţă: The symbolism you just expressed has a flavor of Steampunk, what would you say about that?

Joe Rosato: Part of me wants to say I don't think so, and that is terrible to state if I am in it. I like avoiding classification. To define is to kill. The thing is that I don't know... We are in a time of great flux when "the change is changing" as Heraclitus would say. It is difficult to be able to tell what to focus on. Theater used to be the primary entertainment. People would go out to see Shakespeare, a play that lasted hours and hours and this would not faze people. Today with TV and the such, we are inundated with information, while people want something solid, of worth, if you will, but I don't think anyone knows what that is anymore. Therefore, there is a certain level of confusion and anomie. Nimrod taps into it, the way Steampunk is trying to drive us back to times when we used to understand each other, and we lived in a less confusing world. All of our shows so far are in the late 19th century. To the beginning of a change to industrialization. I'm involved with communication, not theater. Theater is just the outlet. I don't know right now how it is all going to pan out in the future. Communication, as in Babel's Tower is crucial. I was raised by TV, and in a very nihilistic century. I'm looking for the new stuff on the horizon by listening, not shouting, desperately trying to figure out what those are.. I guess that's a good way of describing it. Simplicity and the return to values that we can understand and control may put me to a closer definition of Steampunk. But I do not care about going backwards.. the past is over.

Adrian Ioniţă: You did three pieces with Nimrod. All of them are reenactments of sermons from literary classics like Melville's "Moby Dick", or Kafka's "A Report to an Academy" and a lecture titled “How goes the Battle?” by Henry Ward Beecher (HWB) a famous American clergyman from the 19th century. Morality, violence and faith are very hot issues today. They always had been. Never heard before about HWB, shame on me, but Melville and Kafka are a great choice for the subject. Not talking strictly about their philosophy, but about their personal life. I always feel judgmental in the assessment of their work, especially when a biographical detail slips involuntarily into mind. A mental readjustment of ideas and life even though they don't coincide.

Joe Rosato: Sometimes they do. Did you ever have something change in your life, something inside of you.. not external stuff like moving to a new apartment.. but a change in the way you perceive the world? Human beings have very few changes of consciousness during a lifetime. This process of change is very cyclical in nature, and as one goes into change a vibration begins in ones brain that seems to travel in a loop that gets tighter and tighter until something gives. The change has occurred. Melville's Father Mapple, misses the change and falls back into the past, as he says at the end of the sermon "Oh Father.. here I die." Beecher stands in the midst of change, bridgeing the gap between two worlds.. as his sermon blends religion and science into a rhapsody. He brings over the positive of the past into a new world. Kafka understands the change, and his ape RotPeter rises above his animal origins to become the narcissistic vain man that he now is.. mentioning nothing of God, and ending his lecture by stating.. "I simply report. Even to you, esteemed gentlemen of the Academy, I have only made a report." Read it a couple of times.. and tell me what he means by "even to you". I will tell you my view - he is talking to himself, and the audience is insignificant. He stands in relation to nobody. Alone, and entertaining himself. Sort of what Hamlet does also.. all thought, all planning, little action in relation to others. But yet you cannot help applauding Hamlet. Why?

Adrian Ioniţă: Please tell me more about Kafka's piece

Joe Rosato: In "A Report to an Academy", an ape is giving a lecture about himself, and how he became a human being. A very vain monkey that has climbed in power so that he now has servants (a human butler) in his house. He has become one of Kierkegaard's 'Lecturers', removed from the violence of life, living in their thoughts, secure in life, and judging himself only by the outcome. Do I even have to mention the word symbol when talking of Kafka? Forget about bridging gaps, Kafka lives only in symbol. He, in a séance, bravely admits that his pointers point, and that they are not the thing they point to... or to put it a different way - the stories we create in our head are just that... did you ever see the statue of Kafka in Prague? What a symbol! He is sitting on the shoulders of a large domineering male, who is not there.

[Drew Valins in "A Report to an Academy" © 2008 Marc Rosenblatt]

Adrian Ioniţă: I like the sculpture; it looks like an invisible Iron John, carries on his shoulders the little prince. Who played the monkey?

Joe Rosato: Initially we cast Liza Dickinson, a talented actress who graduated Oberlin College, but she was too involved at the time with "4th Meal Productions", her own theater group, so she only did a couple of performances. The role was taken over by Drew Valins, who was originally cast as one of the Beechers at the time, we had two. He studied at Michael Howard Studios. Scott T Miller, who is a member of Sponsored by Nobody, was the other Beecher. A man with an amazing memory.. out of the 45 minute speech I think he got 1 word wrong.Melville's Moby Dick:the Sermon was acted solely by Rich Kirkwood, for an amaizing 10 month run. A great actor and friend. Rich also writes and recently had a play produced at Art House Productions called SeaStory. The

Kafka piece is the only show still running... we've recently brought it to a German woman's house for a more intimate performance and we're trying to figure what else to do with it now that we lost our spot at the Brooklyn Lyceum. We are currently in communication with Lone Wolf Tribe to possibly re-stage the piece.

[Rich Kirkwood in Moby Dick: The Sermon © 2008 Liz O. Baylen]

Adrian Ioniţă: Do you feel trapped in a world of negation and manipulative perceptions?

Joe Rosato: I think its very true in today's world... there is too much certitude and there are too many people purchasing a position in life through what Jane Jacobs called “Credentialing vs Educating”. Does anyone think the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz is now brave because OZ gave him an certificate? No authority in the world can make you something by fiat and a signed certificate. To me, there are things that need to be said and things that irk me.. that I only learned by having to survive in the world. How about I just open my eyes, speak to what I see, and move forward? Is there not a place for rebellion in this new world, or do I need to be certified for that also? Our compartmentalization is killing us.. society is not a machine or assembly line. So... anyhow... I think that I've answered that question. I'm not exactly sure.

Adrian Ioniţă: How do you redeem the tension of making money in theater while maintaining artistic integrity?

Joe Rosato: Currently unsuccessfully. Since I am not paid for theater I have to work in Information Technology. The hours keep creeping up here in America, outside of the 40 hours per week, and no one treats you like a

human being even if I mention that I need more controllable hours. I'm a hard worker and responsible, which at times seems like the kiss of death. I've burned myself out recently in work, I'm still recovering from that, and I don't have an answer. I don't know, take up yoga, exercise... On the same note there in not enough time to then do theater, and this is my current battle. This is the real world, real problems, and America is not the utopia some fools keep touting. No one can admit that something is the matter, because someone sold us the idea that this place is heaven on earth. Freedom is a general word... I am not free to do many things.

Adrian Ioniţă: How do you balance having to be seen as an authority while directing and working collaboratively with the actors?

Joe Rosato: Getting actors and rehearsing actors in NYC is difficult...with scheduling. In realization of this fact, because I myself also am an actor, we chose pieces that are singular delivery because all we have to do then is schedule the person and me. Makes it a lot simpler. Authority right now is a confusing topic for me on many levels. For starters, my personality leans on the rebellious side of life. I do not like stupid rebellion but I do believe in rebelling for a worthy cause. I started this group and I've worked with people but actually, I think that the only authority is my annoying internal caged emotions and I try to listen to that stuff. That is my master, that internal stuff. There's a certain amount that all I can do is keep my eyes open and talk to people about the dissatisfaction I see. Because if I think that I'm trying to communicate something, and people are not completely on track of what my image is in my head, I develop, lets say, the Babel Syndrome, total confusion, and miscommunication.

Adrian Ioniţă: Do you have any political leanings? You sound smart, are you an elitist?

Joe Rosato: Not interested in politics. Most people cannot engage in critical thinking. This is not an insult or an attack, just a painful realization. There are too many terrified ignorant men doing violent things in the name of willpower (which is motivated by fear), and the result is that many people never get the chance to build up their brains with language, which will then allow critical thinking. The world is still ruled primarily by physical force. We tend to feel that thought is emasculating and that a real man would punch someone to gain power vs. using a legitimate path to power. There is so much cowardice in what we call physical bravery and honor. But this is changing. Everyone knows that something is changing but no one can put his or her finger on it. Small things, but they are there. Video recordings are working like Oedipus eyes in an interesting way. Physical violence as a story works, it sounds right to the head. But record that violence and put if up for all to see and something shatters. In myth a hero vanquishes a foe, but in reality a human being kills a human being. One might be able to forgive it if over the last piece of food, but today we fight about ideas. Killing over an idea is stupid. As Clément Rosset says in his book Joyful Cruelty - "A convinced Marxist pays little attention to the theses set forth by Marx, a convinced Stalinist little attention to the historical reality and psychology of

Stalin. What counts is the purely abstract idea that Marxism is true or that Stalin was right, ideas that are quite independent of what Marx wrote or Stalin did". Politics is wrapped up in triumph, which is a small-lived emotion that dies right after you feel it. We need something that is sustaining, not childishly triumphant. Oh, and I do not think I'm elitist.. I do not like people in Ivory Towers. I want to find a way to live without want or need. To do what Iwant so that work does not seem like slavery. I want to respect people and be respected. I want to rise in power as much as society will let me, and I want to never be part of a world were spite takes precedent over merit.

["A Report to an Academy" © 2008 photo by Liz O. Baylen]

Adrian Ioniţă: What are you up to next?

Joe Rosato: My girlfriend Stephanie is currently 4 months pregnant, so I need to get some money right now.. that is the first priority. So, more IT work. Good time to flesh out new ideas. I worked a long time writing up one piece which is going to combine "Notes from the Underground" wi th a book called "On Aggression" by Konrad Lorenz, but I have a suspicion that this one will change greatly. I'm currently obsessed by physical force and dominance right now, and the idea of Alpha males (leaders). We tend to think that a leader is by default courageous or brave, when sometimes they are just foolishly domineering without purpose or meaning. Also am interested in exploring obedience to authority (followers). All of these things interest me. What else? I am trying to make a narrative out of many narratives. I'm trying to make a story about disconnected things.. and then talk about this 'history' and its unfolding! I want to try to combine The Two Cultures that C.P. Snow talked about by playing around with literature and science and painfully blending them together into a single narrative. I'm knitting my own meaning, and claiming others have their hands on the yarn.

I'm cheating! Maybe I am just entertaining myself, proving how smart I think I am.. but anyway, we should not take life so seriously. How have we become so certain? Why do we think that switching over from God to Darwin solves anything? Great emotions come from deep thought. So I look inward, by experimenting with interrogations of myself, to find something that is meaningful when all external things seem to be devoid of substance. We need to drop the certitude.. in faith, in logic, and in our holy democracy which we somehow think will save the world from certain ruin. We keep reaching toward ideologies that will give us order, as if there is a final destination. Because given an infinite amount of time we will get bored with them all and something else will appear on the horizon to pull us forward. Life is to live, not to solve.. ask Hamlet.

Adrian Ioniţă: Joe Rosato, Thank you for the interview.

related links:

Nimrods TheatreBrooklyn Lyceum

Liz O. Baylen - PhotographerMarc Rosenblatt - Photographer

Greenwood Cemetery ChapelSponsored by Nobody4th Meal Productions

Lone Wolf TribeFractured Atlas

Kafka statue