Fight For Your Rite

A group of strangers struggles to create a ritual.

by Katie Karas

Holly Otterbein

[ participatory theater ]

At the sixth meeting for Rites of Passage, the future looks scary. "If just one person drops off, I don't think we really have a show," says Gina Renzi, executive director of the Rotunda (pictured, left).

Renzi, along with Dutch playwright Gerald van Wilgen, are gathered in West Philly with a few others to create a brand-new "rite of passage" out of thin air. They've been toiling since March on the work, which most closely resembles theater, if anything, and invite anyone to participate — regardless of artistic background, age, gender and so on.

"The idea came to me out of theater — theater is a ritual," says van Wilgen (pictured, right). "I'm also fascinated by what we normally think of as rituals, like graduations, baptisms and inaugurations, and how we walk out of those one person and leave them another."

Keeping with that theme of transformation, the participants — Bill Fieger, Cathy Wiegand and Caitlyn Hatzell, along with van Wilgen and Renzi — resolved that the ritual should seek to change both themselves and audience members for the better. The next step for the group, which operates like a commune by making leader-free, egalitarian decisions, was to choose an aspect of their lives they all wanted to discard. "We quite naturally arrived at excess consumption," says van Wilgen. "It was on all of our minds."

The details of the piece then quickly, and finally, solidified. In the first act, participants depict the ills of consumption. Through song, Wiegand focuses on overeating and buying, asking listeners, "Have you ever thought you could live with less and have success?" Conversely, Hatzell's dance and monologue piece, which Fieger plays music to, is inspired by a very different type of excess: overthinking. And Renzi, who crafted an art installation out of pieces of trash, addresses the environmental effects of living in a consumerist society.

The second act, which audience members will partake in, is the ritual — a very simple deed that Renzi says "will involve water, but we're not exactly sure how yet." Once everyone has ceremoniously booted excess consumption out of their lives, the third act, as van Wilgen says, is a party.

"It will be very light — a celebration of the change we've made with both the audience and performers," he says.

By the weekend before the performance, Renzi is considerably less anxious about the final product than she was when we first met. In fact, she already deems it successful.

"We're almost more excited by the process," she says, noting that another Rites of Passage will take place next month, and all are yet again welcome to join. "A lot of people will get ideas and commission an artist to express them. We really believe that — if we get people talking — we can get them to express themselves."

(katie.karas@citypaper.net)

RITES OF PASSAGE Sat., May 30, 7:30 p.m., free, Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St., 215-573-3234, therotunda.org