It’s danced to a soundtrack of Young’s new text, which is then reinterpreted in movement. At its broadest
and funniest, it’s a kind of whole-body lipsyncing for an outrageous cast of characters. Pite’s dancers are
shapeshifters, as flexible and unpredictable as cartoons. They’ll start with a naturalistic pose, then erupt into
movement that expresses the panics or hesitations of speech.
The Postmaster stumbles over his words, secrets bubbling up and only just repressed. Dancer Jermaine
Spivey swoops and seems almost to swell, body undulating with the words, then snapping impossibly
upright.
What’s real, who’s fake? Even the narrator isn’t sure
The ordinary rules of volume and momentum no longer seem to apply: Pite takes her dancers from full
flight to a frozen stop, and back again.
Young’s new text picks up on the Russian title to make the civil servant a “revisor”, someone who corrects
official documents, changing meaning by moving a comma. We hear of the officials’ crimes only through
omissions and denials. The whole story is obsessively retold, as if looking for the gaps, the crack that might
still let honesty in.
As Gogol’s tale hurtles onwards, Pite and Young start to take it apart. Jay Gower Taylor’s naturalistic set
melts away to leave a stage full of reflected light, gorgeously lit by Tom Visser. The dancers repeat the same
physical groupings, but this time we hear a description of movement – “turn head to the left, tension”. Even
in the abstract, without character costumes or cues, need and panic leak from these bodies.
What’s real, who’s fake? Even the narrator isn’t sure of herself, while the number of performers is slippery.
Gregory Lau’s voiceless Misha emerges like a ghost, simply appearing in the middle of a crowd that
shouldn’t have space for him. Marvellously danced and superbly staged, Revisor creates a world that is
dreamlike and all too familiar.