My overall impression
There’s a moment in Bill Ratner’s fictionalized departure from reality as he knows it, that even though based on some few flimsy family threads, transcends autobiography and fiction, and that’s when he describes his Uncle Bobby’s connection to the world as an actor. The price of admission is fulfilled in that moment.
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Bill Ratner is an award winning story teller and one of the more sonorous voices in LA, – a voice that lends maturity, humor and kindness.
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His work ethic is not to be believed- I have watched him over the course of the day, and no where is this ethic on better display than in his current well worked and tightly woven one man play, Bobbywood.
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Ratner takes what little he knew of the life and downfall of his last remaining family member, his Uncle Bobby, who played a bit part in Desi and Lucy Arnaz’s “I Love Lucy,” and creates an empowering fiction that stays true to the essential nature of his Uncle, yet departs from the entirely real to expose the dark side of Hollywood’s underbelly. And it is dark, as are the Arnaz’s business practices. It’s an exercise in fulfilling the soul’s need to imagine a different ending to an otherwise sad story. In essence, to rewrite the past.
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I am a fan of Bill’s. This is a departure from his usual form of autobiographical story telling. For an artist to walk through an aspect of self that is hitherto unexplored is one of the more courageous acts an artist can make. These forays into the personally unknown mark the true artist.
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I am honored to have been asked to assist on the piece and happy to support the Hollywood Fringe Festival.
