An evening of improvisational ritual that caters a bit too attentively to the goofiness of its late-night audience and doesn’t follow through on the poignant interactive experience it promises.
I could try to write something poignant about the meaning of ceremony and how I relate to it, how it functions in modern culture, and why it might be important to create it, seek it out, and share it with total strangers at a festival like the Edinburgh Fringe. But after watching The Ceremony last night, I feel a bit of resentment over having to do that bit of reflective work myself.
For a show that has received rave reviews throughout its multi-year run, I thought it delivered an evening that was surprisingly empty of feeling and meaning – something that came about from a seemingly over-confident lack of form. I left tired, wondering if I’d missed something.
Australian comic Ben Volchock sent us off with a reminder that the show is different every night, which I do believe. Volchock is undeniably gifted at holding his audience and derives a contagious joy from doing so. The first twenty minutes – during which he had obvious fun mimicking our physical ticks and warming us up vocally – were delightful and made me excited for what might follow.
Repeated, gravely uttered, and explicit promises – that things would “ go deep” and “get real,” and reminders that Volchock himself is not a therapist, and even that, if we’d come there to be healed or seek spiritual guidance, we were mistaken – kept us all raptly at the edge of our seats. What had we just signed up for? I sat at attention, very ready to open up and have a vulnerable experience with the rest of my fellow audience members – something that rarely happens out in the real world and one of the primary reasons anyone goes to the theatre anyway.
That emotional reckoning never came. When I left, I felt a childlike sense of confusion and betrayal, vaguely aware that I had missed something very special and elusive that I’d been promised I could hold in my own hands for an hour, if I behaved like a good girl.
For a show that was billed as “interactive,” the meaning-making seemed to remain firmly locked inside Volchock’s head. Even after, in one exercise, Volchock collected audience responses on little papers, he offered no insight into his process for threading together our offers and whatever story he was trying to tie together. As a result, it almost felt like he was doing us a favor by spinning our crap ideas into something worthy of his theatre magic.
Perhaps that is what the show was really about – that we live in a world that promises all sorts of “meaningful” ceremonies (and the emotional recovery required of them) if we can afford them. Though I’m not convinced the show was that self-aware. Volchock is engaging enough to make me believe I just came on a dud night, but I’m still on the fence as to whether I’d like to sign up for this ceremony again.
The Ceremony is a part of the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe and runs until 25 August. Get your tickets here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-ceremony