Walking in Philadelphia can be a lot like walking in every other city, except with a little more of a grainier edge, and there’s always something new where you least suspected it. This is one of the most interesting cities in the country, with a thriving cultural community that has been very committed to supporting new works by new artists for a few generations now. It has as much history in the neighborhoods as the larger sister cities, but it’s in the top six in the U.S. for population. There is also a tremendous broader sense of history here as well, and many of the citizens recognize that it goes back much further than its existence as one of the original colonies. There are fantastic historical sites where you can visit some of the monuments to the beginnings of contemporary government here, as well as traces of the stories of the native populations.
It’s an extremely diverse place, and there are many perspectives and points of view. It’s always a spectacular pleasure to decide to make the trip by plane or train, book a cheap hotel in Philadelphia, and look around to see what’s happening in the city today. There’s always something different, and something new. When I’m lucky enough to find him, I look for traces of Brad Rothbart, to find out what’s happening in town performance-wise. If he’s on the bill, usually as a dramaturg, then it’s going to be worth seeing.
Brad is one of the original rice cookers for an organization called RAT. RAT can stand for Regional Alternative Theater, among many other things, and the fact that it’s no longer around is fitting because it was never really there. It was always an ethereal structure based on Adorno and Goldman, among many other thinkers, and even when it had meetings and people were there, it was always temporary and autonomous. Although it may not exist, Rothbart does, and he brings a shamanic intelligence to the work, sort of like the sorcerer’s apprentice, but with a lot more deftness.