A promising experiment
Three human-sized rats are attending an institution. A junior is under the guidance of two senior rats, learning a variety of subjects, ballet, literature and later experiments. What the newcomer does not know yet, however, is something horrifying but indispensable: cannibalism, or, in this case, rattibalism.
Directed by Yaqi Sun, RAT RAT RAT is a promising piece of physical theatre which apparently derives quite a lot from the Lecoq tradition with abundant absurdity and dark humour. The three performers, Levenka Andrea, Rebecca Fangnan Zhao and Tiffany Yeung, are brilliant portraying the three rats: the intellectual pretension of the eldest and the affected elegance of the other senior, while contrasting to the junior’s clumsiness and innocence.
Sound by Jade Leamcharaskul and Ganey Zhang is particularly astounding. Interweaving both orchestral and electric arrangement, the soundtrack almost becomes the protagonist of the show, with the narrative serving merely as its annotation. Even the rats’ squeaks and shrieks are vividly incorporated. Together with Xuan Ge’s lighting design, the production precisely captures the nature of the institution: pretentious joy on the surface, profoundly haunting lurks underneath.
Unfortunately, its aesthetic and technical brilliance cannot rescue the blandness of its narrative. It seems to attempt constructing a cyclical story about violence, obedience and discipline perpetuated through generation, but the audience can be never sure and can only guess. It might have echoes of the Black Death or the more recent pandemic, as well as how plagues might form human behaviour, but again, these references are barely articulated through its theatrical language, thus remaining equally vague, indicative and perplexing.
At the end of the show, a pre-recorded projection showing part of its back stage where a young actor is getting trained and later has the rat mascot head placed onto her head. It hints at an intriguing concept of the human-rat metamorphosis which might play a crucial part of the show. Sadly, this also remains largely unexplored.