FRINGE-REVIEW:

The Ritual – Steffen Hånes & Gregory Lass

☆☆☆☆

Written by Kosta Miladinovic, actor

The Ritual, made and delivered by Gregory Lass and Steffen Hånes, is a humoristic show where The Master (Steffen) and his loyal servant Gregor (Gregory) attempt to conduct a ritual while making obstacles for themselves, which they have to overcome. 

The show begins with Gregor gently drumming and conducting the audience to fill the seats closest to the stage. This process makes us feel seen and important for the show, which becomes clear when two audience members refuses to fill empty seats closer than the ones they were sitting in. The time and effort Gregor uses to convince them to do so, changing tactics and approaches, and in the end managing to involve us all in convincing them to change their seats made me excited for what the rest of the show had to bring!

The Master, it turns out in the end, is a master of improvisation, responding to the audience with an impressive precision and wit. He delivered on the promise we got from Gregor in the beginning, that the audience is as important for this show as the actors themselves. Gregory and Steffen showed how a simple concept could be derived in to a whole show by using classical comic tools like set up, repetition and improvisation. The humor they use I like to describe as "dumb" (which is my favorite kind), but here is an example to help you get a better picture (spoiler alert!): The Master asks for the lights to be turned off, and then goes around the room saying "Oooh, where could he be?", even though every one can see him since it is not completely dark in the room. That kind of humor is only possible if we believe that the actors fully believe in their characters. That is maybe the most impressive part about Steffen's and Gregory's performances.

And because the show is so open for audience interaction, you could watch it many times and still get a unique experience!

Although most of the set ups where followed through, there are some parts of the show that were left unresolved, like Gregor's teeth and his constant praying whenever he lost his "kippah". This does, however, make me want to watch the show again, and see how different it is next time.

All in all, I got a healthy dose of laughter, and I warmly

recommend this show to all the adults (it is PG18)!

Four out of five stars.