Ben Volchok's interactive theatrical experiment asks its audience to create a ceremony, an act of collective ritual, unique to the people in the room.
He does this cleverly and with an excellent understanding of social conditioning. Ben does not speak at all, instead he looks to his audience to find simple, playful games in our own behaviour—it's an exercise drama teachers might use to warm up before an improvisation class, and the Fringe audience roll their sleeves up and get stuck in with minimal resistance.
When we are all broadly on the same page, we guide ourselves through a witty disclaimer, reading from his PowerPoint, to lay out the purpose and direction of the piece: be open, share and be prepared to go deep, we are advised.
As we then get into the experiment, Tolchok expertly draws together written suggestions in response to the very open prompts of Past, Present and Future. As a highly skilled improviser with a keen eye for the absurd and an impish spirit, Ben begins to infer meaning and work connections to establish the bedrock of our ceremony and what it is that we as a collective want to celebrate.
The result is a touching bit of nonsense that is good fun; however, I felt there were missed opportunities to create deeper connections between the ideas presented, which would have elevated the experience beyond whimsy.