The Wooster Group: A Symphony of Rats at OZ Arts

The legendary Wooster Group transforms OZ 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 thrillride that New York Magazine describes as “delightful…an attempt to theatricalize the chaos of the brain.”

Written when Ronald Reagan was in the oval office, Symphony of Rats 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. This delightfully smart and entertaining production is the must-see theatrical event of the season.