Egg yolk is being mixed up to make gold paint when I arrive at Ritual, an eight-hour-long performance installation in a windowless basement posing as a Mycenaean palace. I’ve just missed Orestes (a committed Charlie MacRae-Tod, in a hoodie and three-stripe trackies) fighting off a janitor with a knife, an audience member whispers to me, before being sternly shushed. Chastened, we return to watching paint dry.
In this ambitious but under-resourced production from immersive company Witness, first performed in New York, this former prince is in exile, waiting for communication from the gods before taking revenge for the murder of his father. For as long or as little as we like, we are invited to wait with him.
