Dayna Lea Hoffmann and Katie Yoner in Rat Academy, Batrabbit Productions. Pghoto supplied.

Rat Academy (Stage 23, Holy Trinity Anglican Church)

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Face it, cats have had their day (and night and decades) onstage, ingratiating themselves with the public. What of the rat, the ultimate outsider, marginalized, up against a hostile world for their very survival, especially in Alberta? Everyday’s an existential crisis when you’re a rat.

In Rat Academy, a captivating, wonderfully imagined clown show from the duo of Dayna Lea Hoffmann and Katie Toner, we meet two, in an alley. Ever seen a rat shrug? Fingers (Hoffman), the scrappier, more street savvy of the pair, glares suspiciously at us: “why are they in my house?.” Let’s just say it’s not his (pronouns up for grabs) first block party.

Rat Academy, Batrabbit Productions, Edmonton Fringe 2023

Shrimp (Yoner) is white, a bit fluffy, rabbity (to mix our species metaphors), dazed, a veritable Candide of a rodent — an escapee from the lab out in the world and (dangerously) ready to make friends among us.

Fingers will have none of it. He undertakes his pal’s worldly education, with props at hand in the garbage can and pilfered cheese “for special occasions.” Forget self-esteem therapy; this isn’t rodent Beckett, for god’s sake. This is practical paws-on pedagogy from the street (er, the alley)I , with lessons like How 2 Steal (a comic classic, from the Three Stooges tradition), How 2 Sniff, How 2 Fight.

The worldly vs. innocent dynamic is very funny, expertly established and sustained (along with rat voices). And so is the way the characters interact with the audience. Shrimp is a distractible student, who keeps flunking every night school course at the academy, and we laugh sympathetically. Fingers, the fierce one, on a short fuse getting ever shorter, is increasingly exasperated with his protegé — and with us, for our reactions. The more he hears the Awww of cuteness, the more he rolls his eyes. “O my god. Come on!”

Both Hoffmann and Toner are responsive; these rats are light on their feet, and quick on the uptake. There’s rat shit, true, but nobody sings Memory. The interview section, in which our rodents venture into the audience with a magic 8-ball, is a riot.

I know you’ll have questions, about friction in the teacher-student relationship, etc. In a world that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about outsiders, can the rat demi-monde transcend personality conflict? C’mon, see the show. It’s a masterly little comic gem.