Revisor review – astonishing take on Gogol demands to be seen again

Actors speak, dancers move. In Revisor, choreographer Crystal Pite and theatre-maker Jonathon Young once again sync their worlds together. As with the searing Betroffenheit and wire-taut The Statement, Revisor finds Pite’s phenomenal dancers performing a kind of physical lip-syncing to scripted voiceovers by Young’s actors. The result is astonishing not for its imitation, but for its exactitude: the rhythms and intonations of speech drive every gesture, stance and step. Choreographically, it’s riveting, both for the inventive articulation of individual bodies and for the fine-tuned dynamics of the ensemble, as responsive as conversation itself.

Young’s text derives from Nikolai Gogol’s 1836 play The Government Inspector (Revizor in Russian), a tale of petty bureaucracy, mistaken identity, mixed motives and revolving doors; in short, a farce. With their hunches, strides, flinches and shrugs, the dancers give the script an exaggerated, silent-film feel: broad humour in fine form. Yet there’s an undertow of unease. Body and voice (and indeed sound and lighting) may be super-synced, but they’re also uncannily dissociated.

Source: The Guardian