Except in the frozen Arctic and Antarctic regions of the world, rats live everywhere on this planet EXCEPT in one Canadian province.
Yes, that's right. ALBERTA. We are the largest inhabited area on earth without rats.
For 75 years, the Alberta government has funded an extremely aggressive rat control program. Rats are highly destructive of any agricultural sector, consuming and contaminating stored grains and feed, gnawing tunnels and holes in buildings and equipment, and transmitting diseases via fleas and contamination. Even a small rat infestation can cost millions to the economy.
Alberta's official Rat Patrol Team monitors the province and eradicates rats before they can get established and reproduce. There are government hotlines for people to report any rat sightings. It is illegal in Alberta to own any kind of pet rat. Only frozen dead rats can be sold by pet stores as food for snakes. Scientific institutions, medical research facilities, and zoos are allowed to keep caged and monitored rats for authorized purposes.
So what's a poor rat gotta do to survive here? That question is answered by an excellent, laugh-out-loud theatre play which friends and I saw in April entitled Rat Academy.
Fingers, a curmudgeonly, mangey street rat, is the only rat still loose in Alberta. Or so he thinks. One day in a back alley in Edmonton, he discovers Shrimp, a happy-go-lucky, naive white lab rat who has just escaped captivity. Fingers creates his own Rat Academy to train Shrimp in survival skills -- how to sniff out food and humans, how to run, hide and fight, and how to avoid traps. In so doing, Fingers also trains the audience and reluctantly relies on their incompetent human assistance to street-proof Shrimp. The play is a crazy mix of scripted lines (including a Shakespearean soliloquy delivered by Shrimp), sassy improv, audience participation, and slapstick.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
Just a couple of days ago, we attended its zany sequel -- Rat Academy 2: Gnaw and Order!
Fingers and Shrimp receive an Eviction Notice from the Province of Alberta to vacate their Edmonton alley home! Our heroes scheme to separate their alley from Alberta and make it their own country! But political infighting between the two rats scuppers that plan. Then things get worse! They receive an Evisceration Notice from the Rat Patrol Team! So what can they do except turn themselves into Lawyer Rats and go to court? Alas, they learn some Hard Lessons About Justice. This play ends on a cliffhanger, with the cop cars and sirens of the Rat Patrol closing in on Fingers and Shrimp.
Will there be a Rat Academy 3? Time alone will tell.
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