A (3:40)

And he found the Theater of the Ridiculous. Tell us when you first heard of the Theater of the Ridiculous and how you would describe it to someone.

B (3:51)

Well, it's a very important and nice question because. Well, the first time I heard about the Theater of the Ridiculous was by Leandro himself. And I started to do a research. I mean, I talked to David Kaufman, which has written a very important book about the Theater of the Ridiculous that is called Ridiculous. And it's a biography of Charles Ladlan. Charles Ladolan was the. The alma mater of the company. He was the actor, the main actor. He designed all these characters. He also wrote all the. All the plays of the Theater of the Ridiculous. So I did a very important research. I got in contact also with Joey Jeffries, which is a very important scholar that has. That made some research about drug history in New York. I also went to the New York Public Library. In the performance part, there is the archive of Charles Lam. The alma mater of the group is there. And it's a very important archive. So I think that Leandro in the movie plays a central role in a way that he permits us to enter the Theater of the Ridiculous because he has a very important archive. I mean, he has a lot of photographs that are amazing. He has some films made, and he has also some interviews that he made in 2006, I think, that I used in my movie, that. I mean, he was trying to research the phenomenon and he interviews some important characters and, you know, people that were engaged with the theater at the precursor. I don't know if I'm answering your question.

A (5:47)

That's okay. We'll keep going. You know, throughout the film, you have these slides that outline the rules and the philosophy of the company. Would you share one or two of those rules so that people can understand what the Theater the Ridiculous was about?

B (6:04)

Okay, I think. Well, they had a manifesto, and that manifesto was related to their conception of art and the work of art and how it is. They will try to do some parody of the ideas of the masculine and the feminine roles and the idea of art and be. They were. They were working with these ideas of, for example, of Artau, the idea of the theater, of the cruelty. So they were also thinking about some moral issues. Also. You have to think that 60s and 70s was a period in which Sexuality was constrained, but it was also a moment in which there was also a lot of freedom I think they were pursuing. They were trying to. They were trying to create something that was related with that freedom. They took also ideas from Bertolt Brecht, which is. Which was very influential for Charles Ladlam, I mean, the son of Berto Brecht, who was an important. He was an actor also, but he also made reviews, theater reviews. And he was part of the company. He and his wife were part of the company. Marie Brecht used to design all the costumes for the company. So they were trying to think this avant garde theater. I don't know. They were trying to make a statement about sexuality, about the idea of humanity also. So, yeah, I think that the manifesto related with that idea of the ridiculous.

A (8:04)

We are continuing our coverage of Doc NYC with a film about the world of avant garde theater and Cinema in early 1970s New York City. We're speaking with the director of Museum of the Night, Fermin Eloy Acosta. There's this really cool, interesting part of the film where we see New York and everything is. Is very sped up. It's speeded up very. All the time. Tell us about your decision to put that in the film without necessarily anybody explaining it, but it tells part of the story.

B (8:43)

Okay. Those images of New York were images taken from a. From a very important work of Leandro that is called Metropotamia. It was some kind of an installation. It was taken from that. These speed up images were already so fast. I mean, those images are some kind of a time lapse of New York in the 70s. And you get to feel the spirit of that era. I wanted to think about the synchronization of these images within the movie. I think it's a movie that works with different kind of speeds and intensities. So. But what we did with that image is worth. We designed all the soundtrack, all the sound that you got to hear. I mean, those images were mute and silent. So we did a very strong work researching how this, how the city sounded at that era. And we imagine how the song could be to that image. So I wanted to think about different times collapsing during the whole movie. So we were thinking about the 60s, but those images are from the 70s and the 80s. And also the movie mixes analogic images and digital images. And I got to film in 60 millimeters, so it's like a mixture. I like to think that the movie is like a collage. So those images are part of thinking about time. I really like to think about Time, Because I don't know, cinema is, you know, about time itself. Narrative. It's about time. So I was trying to think about this ghost of the company of the theater, of the ridiculous emerging in that images. So you get to hear some weird sounds while you travel in the city.

A (10:50)

What do you see as sort of the continuity between these avant garde theater experiences which we see in your film and what artists are doing today?

B (11:03)

Well, it's. Well, it's a difficult question because I don't know if there is an important connection between these two scenes. I think that now we are constrained to different problems. I mean, I think in that era, everything was about freedom. Everything was about inventing new languages. Everything was about, I don't know, Charles and the company, for example, use nudity as a costume, you know, and now we are seeing nudity everywhere. So I think it's. Now it's more difficult to invent, to imagine new devices to defy. I mean, to. Yes, to imagine other ways to find freedom. I mean, it's quite difficult today because we are so. We are in a moment in which these kind of things. I don't know if that work at the same level. I don't know if that answered your question. But I think they have more freedom in a way that they were creating out of nothing.

A (12:22)

The name of the film is Museum of the Night. It is filming as part of a screening as part of DOC nyc. You can watch it online. I've been speaking, speaking with this director for Min, Eloy Acosta. Thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

B (12:38)

Thank you. Thank you very much. Alison.