At first glance, Big Thick Rod might look like a play filled with penis jokes and double entendres. Which it is. But it's also something more. The play's outrageousness, its seeming silliness, serve to heighten the effectiveness of its treatment of much darker themes. Below, we go deeper with Big Thick Rod.

Rod Goes Deeper

Dramaturgical Context | Thematic Issues | W.H. Auden | Larger Significance

Dramaturgical Context

When considering genre, BIG THICK ROD is difficult to place. It is a farce, but it is deeper and more complex than a basic traditional farce. It is most similar to the Theatre of the Ridiculous. Theatre of the Ridiculous, a style popularized in the downtown New York theatre scene of the late 1960s and 1970s, is an important landmark in American drama. The often-overlooked genre is epitomized in the plays of Charles Ludlam. Ludlam wrote, directed, starred in, and produced 29 plays for the Ridiculous Theatrical Company, based out of the theatre at One Sheridan Square. What is it to be Ridiculous?

In an interview with Gautam Dasgupta, Charles Ludlam answered this question: "It has to do with humor and unhinging the pretensions of serious art. It comes out of the dichotomy between academic and expressive art, and the idea of a theatre that revalues things. It takes what is considered worthless and transforms it into high art." The Ridiculous theatre was always a concept of high art that came out of an aesthetic which was so advanced it really couldn’t be appreciated. It draws its authority from popular art, an art that doesn’t need any justification beyond its power to provide pleasure. Sympathetic response is part of its audience.

In short, Ridiculous plays maintain entertainment as their ultimate goal. In the process, however, Ridiculous works make serious and hard-hitting social commentary, made palatable through humor, both slapstick and linguistic. Nothing is sacred in the world of a Ridiculous play; as the genre’s name implies anything can be ridiculed. In addition, nothing is beneath the Ridiculous – one can use so-called “low forms” of entertainment either to provoke a laugh or to get a point across. In this manner, Wood’s play can be seen as reminiscent of the work of the Theatre of the Ridiculous. This style has an impressive legacy, seen in works such as the plays of Charles Busch, Hedwig and the Angry Inch by John Cameron Mitchell, and cabaret duo Kiki & Herb. BIG THICK ROD hearkens back to the style of the Theatre of the Ridiculous as well, using humor as its key element both to entertain and to isolate its important thematic material.

Dramaturgical Context | Thematic Issues | W.H. Auden | Larger Significance