DURING THE TWO DECADES between 1967 and 1987, dramatist, actor, and agent provocateur Charles Ludlam would rebelliously change theatre in America for the next generation. As the founder of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company and the author of 29 raucous and highly entertaining plays, Ludlam quite literally became the “belle of the ball” of the West 
Village countercultural theatre scene during this period. The spirit of the Ridiculous Theatre has survived the years since Ludlam’s death in 1987, and Ludlam’s own plays are still performed, so it seems on the occasion of this anniversary an opportune time to reconsider the history of the Ridiculous Theatre from its inception to its peak, as Ludlam developed the movement into a lasting theatrical form.
What, then, was the Ridiculous as a genre of theatre and as an artistic movement? In her preface to the 1979 edition of Theatre of the Ridiculous, Bonnie Marranca, noting that the Ridiculous often deploys “dramatic structures that parody classical literary forms,” defines it in the following way:
A highly self-conscious style, the Ridiculous tends towards camp, kitsch, transvestitism, the grotesque, flamboyant visuals, and literary dandyism. It is comedy beyond the absurd because it is less intellectual, more earthy, primal, liberated. Not tragicomedy but metaphysical burlesque, the Ridiculous offers a new version of the “clown.” Its dependency on the icons, artifacts, and entertainment of mass culture in America—the “stars,” old movies, popular songs, television, and advertising—makes the Ridiculous a truly indigenous American approach to making theatre.
The uniqueness of the Ridiculous is in its approach to the political: rather than calling for reform through protest, it reflects and satirizes contemporary life through a lens of queer identity, anti-hegemonic possibility, and the embrace of farce, danger, and the imagination. Ludlam revealed his own philosophy of the Ridiculous in his manifesto, Ridiculous Theatre, Scourge of Human Folly, in this way: “This farce is not a Sunday school. Illustrate hedonistic calculus. Test out a dangerous idea, a theme that threatens to destroy one’s whole value system. Treat the material in a mildly farcical manner without losing the seriousness of the theme. Show how paradoxes arrest the mind. Scare yourself a bit along the way.”
While the comic roots of the Ridiculous might be traced back to Aristophanes, the commedia dell’arte, or Molière, the people who originated the Ridiculous are uniquely American and gay, exploding out of 1960’s West Village counterculture. Ludlam explained his opinion of why the Ridiculous is inherently gay, stating, “Gay people have always found a refuge in the arts, and the Ridiculous Theatre is notable for admitting it. The people in it—and it is a very sophisticated theatre, culturally—never dream of hiding anything about themselves that they feel is honest and true and the best part of themselves. Nothing is concealed in the Ridiculous.”
The seeds of the Ridiculous movement are apparent in the underground films that were a staple of the mid-century American avant-garde. Filmmaker and Plaster Foundation founder Jack Smith is often credited as the creative force behind the Ridiculous æsthetic. Ludlam, however, acknowledged filmmaker Ron Rice as his original inspiration, citing his films for being “very orgiastic with lush costuming” in an unpublished interview from 1981. Rice’s short The Flower Thief was shot in 1960, two years before Smith’s notorious cult classic Flaming Creatures in 1962–63. Rice began to work as an assistant for Smith at his loft in Soho, producing and performing in midnight performances that were dependent on excessively gaudy sets and costumes, with equally bizarre titles such as Withdrawal from Orchid Lagoon and Rehearsal for the Destruction of Atlantis. Smith advertised these plays in the Village Voice as being presented by the “Reptilian Theatrical Company.” Regardless of whether Rice or Smith came first, their film and theatre work is undoubtedly the first example of what would eventually be defined as “Ridiculous.” It was via Smith and his relationship with drag queen and Flaming Creatures’ subversive lead Mario Montez that playwright Ronald Tavel came into the Ridiculous fold. Tavel and Smith shared an adoration of 1940’s B-picture queen Maria Montez (from whom Mario Montez borrowed his sobriquet). Tavel, who had been working collaboratively with Andy Warhol at the Factory making short films, was put off when Warhol protégé Edie Sedgewick refused to participate in Tavel’s new script Shower. Sedgewick claimed that she didn’t want “to be a part of Ronnie’s perversities anymore.” Tavel reacted by breaking ties with Warhol in 1965. The split fortuitously led to Tavel’s introduction to a young director by the name of John Vaccaro. Vaccaro would step in to direct Shower and would also co-found the Playhouse of the Ridiculous (PHR) with Tavel the same year.
While the origin of the appellation “Ridiculous” is debatable, it was at this point that a new genre in American theatre solidified. Together, Vaccaro and Tavel would produce the plays The Life of Lady Godiva, Indira Gandhi’s Daring Device, and Screen Test in several Manhattan galleries and theaters in 1966. It was in the original production of The Life of Lady Godiva that a young Ludlam, fresh from Hofstra University, played the role of Peeping Tom. Ludlam began working regularly with the PHR, and it was during the original production of Screen Test that he set his theatrical destiny in motion when he spontaneously mounted the stage in a charismatic interpretation as old Hollywood siren Norma Desmond (without the permission of Tavel or Vaccaro). As Ludlam gained prominence and popularity in the company, visions differed and egos clashed, causing a rift to open between Tavel and Ludlam and prompting Ludlam to try his own hand at playwriting for the troupe. His original scripts for Big Hotel (1966) and Conquest of the Universe (1967) were performed to an eager audience by the PHR, directed by Vaccaro. Eventually, Ludlam’s relationship with Vaccaro also became strained and he independently founded the Ridiculous Theatrical Company (RTC) in 1967 with a mutinous half of the PHR company in tow.
Over the next twenty years, Ludlam built his reputation and refined the Ridiculous genre as the RTC’s resident playwright, director, and lead actor. The first plays followed the same style that had been germinated by Rice, Smith, Tavel, and Vaccaro, and followed the epic format Ludlam had originated in Big Hotel and Conquest of the Universe. These early plays were grand in scope and unconcerned with plot, as were the next two plays (both written and produced in 1969), Turds in Hell and The Grand Tarot. Ludlam’s plays were recycled chaos, juxtaposing great literature, the golden age of Hollywood, and contemporary pop culture draped in the mantle of pastiche.
After attracting critical praise and a cult following with these initial productions, Ludlam left the epic style behind and attempted to create his own classic repertory to reflect the rapidly changing world outside. To this end, he adopted the format of the French “well-made play” as popularized by playwright Eugène Scribe over a century earlier. In the decade between 1970 and 1980, Ludlam reinvented the classics and created some of his most memorable roles. The first of these, Bluebeard (1970), drew from several works including Bela Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle and H. G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. Also during this period, Ludlam developed what is arguably his most infamous role when he donned a period dress with low décolletage that exposed his hirsute chest while playing Marguerite Gautier in his raucous rewrite of the Dumas play Camille (1973). He even tried his hand at Shakespeare, reworking Hamlet into a meta-theatrical romp in Stage Blood (1975). The success of these plays as well as domestic and international tours began to give the RTC some cultural cachet and more financial stability. This allowed the troupe to sign a ten-year lease on a permanent performance space at One Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village in 1978.
The final phase of Ludlam’s playwrighting and performance saw him concentrating on farcical situations in American settings, still mish-mashing literary allusions with popular culture. He wrote and starred in Le Bourgeois Avant-Garde (1983) in homage to the great farceur Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and as a tongue-in-cheek reaction to what he considered the utter silliness of performance art, which was garnering critical acclaim at the time. Ludlam differentiated his own work from the avant-garde when he stated in Performing Arts Journal that, “a handy definition for avant-garde is that’s it’s beige-black-white-and-gray. Ridiculous Theatre is in color.” Nowhere is such color more apparent than in Ludlam’s greatest critical success, The Mystery of Irma Vep (1984), a tour de force of the quick change, as he and his lover Everett Quinton played all eight characters in a tightly structured plot (which was based on a Victorian melodrama and scavenged everything from Daphne DuMaurier’s novel Rebecca to the monster movies of the 1930’s and 40’s).
Having finally gained fame through the RTC and years of hard work, Ludlam began to receive calls to appear in television and film, and even got an offer to take a production to Broadway. However, all of this was cut short when Ludlam succumbed to AIDS-related pneumonia in 1987 at the age of 44. Ludlam biographer David Kaufman writes, “those who knew and worked with Ludlam speak eloquently of the aura of destiny surrounding him…[his]charisma instantly held sway over anyone who entered his orbit.” His death was mourned fully and openly, culminating in a lengthy obituary on the front page of the New York Times, an honor usually reserved for nationally celebrated figures.
Ludlam’s untimely exit did not end the hopes of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company and its tradition: he had secured a ten-year lease on his Manhattan theater at One Sheriden Square, and the complete collection of his plays was published by Harper & Row two years later. In sharp contrast to this, RTC members, when asked during an NPR broadcast whether the company could continue after Ludlam’s passing, earnestly responded with a communal “no.” But soon RTC member Steven Samuels found a typed document left by the playwright for his lover Everett Quinton, offering instructions on how to continue the company. In it, Ludlam metaphorically stated, “the art of playwriting can be passed on from father to son.” Today Ludlam’s legacy lives on in the work of performers such as gender-bending 2006 Drama Desk Award winner Bradford Louryk, performance artist extraordinaire Taylor Mac, and Boston–Provincetown staple Ryan Landry and the Gold Dust Orphans.
Sean F. Edgecomb, a doctoral candidate in drama at Tufts, is currently working on his dissertation, “Still Ridiculous: The Legacy of Charles Ludlam and the Ridiculous Theatre Movement, 1987–2007.”
