See what I did there? Since Rite
sounds like the direction right, and left is the opposite… never mind.On March
17, 2015 I saw The Rite performed by SITI Company with Bill T. Jones Dance
Company. It was quite the experience… just not the Rite one for me.
I am hilarious.
Anyway, I’ll start with the good.
The dance is spectacular, with the ability of the dancers obviously pushed to
their limits. The amount of sweat falling off of the dancers faces could have
filled an Olympic swimming pool. I guess I won’t limit it to the dancing, all
of the movement was incredibly well done. There was one bit where a person was
walking on chairs being placed in front of her, when the people holding the
chairs lifted them off the ground. As if this wasn’t enough, they turned the
chairs sideways, so the person walking on them was walking on a horizontal
plane being supported by two people holding her. That is just one example of
the extraordinary movement to be found in this piece. As well, the dialog is
well said, with good timing as well as good lines. Some lines delve into the
nature of humanity, asking the audience why we perceive time as only moving in
one direction. It is a very thought provoking experience, and in that aspect it
would gain enough of my saliva to run its plumbing for weeks. However, for me
there is one major downside.
There is little or no plot. There
is nothing to hold the whole thing together, giving the lines little to no
reason to be there. The people are just dancing, the actors are just speaking.
There are hints to what it may be about, mostly coming from one character. As
soon as this character appeared, she broke the fourth wall. Throughout the play
she asked the dancers and actors questions of if they knew about the audience,
if they wanted to change anything about their current state. These sections
hint that the play may be a commentary on acting and theatre, showing the
humanity and realization that comes with acting in a play. However, those
sections are diluted with a plot that feels crowbarred in. Throughout the play,
there is a solder character. He has the first monologue in the play, and some
events in the play are catered to him. However, he is never explained, he is
just there and has lines. He has problems sure, and it is interesting. I just
never understood what he was doing for the play. If they justified his
existence somewhere it would have made sense and I would have been completely
fine with it. However, even the play addresses the confusion over what its
about. The lady that broke the fourth wall had an entire section where she
tried to explain what the play was about. Eventually she settled on “It’s about
sex. A primal human instinct to be satisfied.” However I think the play had
very little to do with that.
I guess the deciding factor of this
is whether you like a plot in a play. If you want to see dancing there is
certainly a lot of that and it is amazing. However there is no plot. Think of it like this: My opinion is in a
play, the plot is glue to hold all of the movement and dialog up. You can have
the finest materials to build a house, perfectly sanded and painted wood, but
it won’t stay up if there is no cement to keep it together. So as a play it’s a
not that great. If it had been labeled as a dancing experience with dialog
instead of a play then I would be much better towards it.
Rating: Sony getting hacked again
and again. It’s a good company and they do a lot of hard work, they just get
criticized for having bad marketing and PR.
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