Let’s get one thing straight: The Ceremony is not a cult. So what is it? Well, that’s harder to define. It’s created fresh every night, depending on the audience’s contributions. It’s sometimes unsettling, sometimes hilarious, sometimes moving, sometimes provocative. It’s most certainly always a testament to the talents of Ben Volchok, who is confident enough to start the show in a silence that can stretch to up to 15 minutes or even for the duration of the show as he plays with the audience’s expectations. But it is not a cult. It’s kind of whatever you want it to be. You might choose to see it as an exercise in thought experiment (and there is something spooky about the way an audience comes together). You could think of it as a ritual (a word that comes up a lot), a way of creating cohesion and celebration. You may see it as something beautiful, to sit in a lovely old building that’s been repurposed into a fringe venue to watch the kind of show that can only ever exist in fringe theatre. Or, you could simply see it as an entertaining night out where you might learn something about your pals: that’s there too. Ultimately, The Ceremony is based on our reaction to Volchok’s extraordinary skills. It is what we make it. Just don’t make it a cult.