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Michael Cox reviews 'an impressive work'.
Rites is a very challenging theatrical production to watch. And barring a few stumbling points, it is also very good.
Co-creators Cora Bissett and Yusra Warsama have interviewed a large range of people throughout the UK on the subject of FGM—female genital mutilation, also know to some as ‘cutting’ or female circumcision. The play is the cumulative effort of these interviews with a company of five actors portraying a variety of people from all walks of life, all of whom have been affected by FGM.
Enhanced by projections and an eclectic soundscape, the ninety-minute play is less interested in making a definitive statement or conveying plot than it is in presenting multiple points of view on the subject.
The performances are uniformly excellent, with each of the five actors playing at least two characters who linger in the mind long past the curtain call. We are introduced to a number of striking characters: women who are survivors, parents who feel pressured into having their daughters cut, medical and political figures and members of the community who have pro and con feelings on the subject and what to do about it.
Perhaps the large gallery of characters mean we aren't allowed to emotionally invest in many of them, but the degree of insight that the play presents is refreshing and strives to highlight how large the issue is, and how little anyone in the West really knows. Unfortunately, the production also ends on a rather poor note with a final song which is well-intentioned but only manages to somewhat deflate the momentum of the production and comes across at best as misjudged.
On the whole, Rites is an impressive work. It might not be as even handed as it claims at times, but it is a very effective political statement on a taboo subject that deserves to be discussed in far greater detail.
Rites performs at the Tron until May 9 before touring to Manchester and Bristol. It performs at the Traverse in Edinburgh from May 26-30.
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