Revisor

At The Playhouse until February 23, 2019
Sold out

Posted February 22, 2019

With every newspaper and news broadcast this week leading with the scandalous SNC-Lavalin affair, Revisor, a re-visiting of Nikolai Gogol’s 1836  The Government Inspector, is eerily relevant. A farce of mistaken identity that reveals corruption in a small Russian town, Revisor cannot help but resonate today as we hear about monumental public project cost overruns, log-splitters and football tickets paid for out of the public purse.  Jonathon Young, co-founder of The Electric Company Theatre and co-creator of Revisor, could not possibly have imagined what a nerve this dance/theatre hybrid, co-created by choreographer Crystal Pite, would hit when he began thinking about The Government Inspector a few years ago.

Following Young and Pite’s first collaboration – the internationally-acclaimed, award-winning Betroffenheit (including the 2017 Olivier Award for Best Dance Production) – Revisor sold out  months ago. For lucky ticket-holders, anticipation amongst both theatre and dance aficionados  was  sky-high and the atmosphere on opening night at The Playhouse was electric.

The opening scene on an austere set (desk, door, chaise) designed by Jay Gower Taylor, is esthetically thrilling: the characters, in 19^th century period costumes, receive the rumour that a highly-placed government inspector is on his way to inspect “the complex” which is “in disarray”. These characters move jerkily in an exaggerated fashion; it’s a little like flipping pages in a book to create movement or, like Charlie Chaplin in the very early b/w films. The performers  move their lips but the sound is all voiced-over. It’s like a bizarre puppet show or weirdly animated film. The effect is brilliant.

The arrival of an inspector (“revizor” in Russian) is imminent  but when a petty clerk arrives and is mistaken for the government inspector, what was already crazy behaviour gets crazier.

That’s Part 1 of the 90-minute uninterrupted performance.

In Part 2, periodic costumes are gone and Revisor becomes mostly dance and a danced discourse on the creative process. Some of the voice-over I imagine is Crystal Pite’s interior monologue as she choreographs the piece. Similar to, “left leg shift forward, no right leg, arms raised, no left arm” etcetera. In short, the choreographer is revising, endlessly revising. Creativity and revision are bound together. Words loop around and around as the dancers appear to struggle to capture the uncertainty of choreographer, to do the choreographer’s bidding – whatever that might be. “The subject is moved. The subject is moved. The subject is moved.” Again, and again, ending with, “Why am I here?”

Gogol’s The Government Inspector has left the theatre.

But the dancers are fabulous – especially the woman who appears as a flirtatious floozy in a diaphanous peignoir in one scene. Revisor is an impeccable, flawless work with fabulous lighting by Tom Visser (including explosions of light like a transformer blowing up or lightning striking) and atmospheric sound composed and designed by Owen Belton, Meg Roe and Alessandro Juliani. Performers are Doug Letheren, Rena Narumi, Matthew Peacock, David Raymond, Ella Rothschild, Cindy Salgado, Renée Sigouin, Jermaine Spivey, and Tiffany Tregarthen.

 

I suspect people who like dance will appreciate Revisor more than those who like their theatre with plot, character development, denouement and catharsis. On opening night, however, there was a prolonged, standing ovation for this ambitious, surreal and cerebral work produced by Kidd Pivot, presented by DanceHouse.

For a more dance oriented review, check out Janet Smith’s article in the Georgia Straight at https://www.straight.com/arts/1204031/kidd-pivots-remarkable-revisor-more-lives-expectations