RAT RAT RAT
Old Operating Theatre
★★★
“visually compelling, often funny, and full of promise”
Presented by EggGen and Selene Mingyue Hu, RAT RAT RAT is a site-specific movement and puppetry work staged at the Old Operating Theatre Museum, one of Europe’s oldest surviving surgical theatres. The venue is not merely a backdrop. Before the performance begins, the audience has time to explore the museum’s displays of medical history, surgical tools and anatomical memory. By the time we enter the performance space, the atmosphere has already prepared us for something unsettling. The standing arrangement also alters the act of viewing: we are not simply watching a show, but are placed inside a historical site of observation, discipline and pain.
The work opens with a gentle wash of light and music. Three oversized rats appear, dressed in ballet-like costumes: soft, fluffy, oddly adorable, and immediately comic. The opening classroom sequence is one of the most visually successful sections. A teacher-rat leads from the front, while the two rat-students follow in a triangular formation. The choreography, developed by movement director Jonathan Layton, gives each rat a distinct personality. One particularly clumsy, awkward rat becomes the comic centre of the piece, its failed attempts at discipline producing some of the evening’s strongest humour.
There is also a striking visual intelligence in the candlelit reading scene. As the rats gather around small lamps, the combination of lighting, Freya Yuejie Li’s costumes and vintage props creates a painterly atmosphere, almost reminiscent of Rembrandt or other old master interiors. The rats reading under lamplight are genuinely funny: one appears absorbed in study, while another struggles with the very idea of reading. These small physical details successfully build character.
Where the piece becomes less certain is in its tonal and dramaturgical development. According to the press material, RAT RAT RAT draws from histories of animal experimentation and the atrocities of Unit 731 during the Second World War, asking how violence becomes normalized through systems, routines, instructions, and the language of necessity or scientific progress. This is a powerful premise. Yet in the current version, the connection between the comic rat-school and the later surgical sequence is not fully resolved.
When one rat is forced towards the audience, stripped, and placed on the operating table, the atmosphere should sharpen into horror. Instead, the moment unfolds too naturally, almost too smoothly. The potential climax of bodily violence needs more dramatic pressure, not necessarily through gore, but through rhythm, sound, stillness and escalation.
As a work-in-progress, RAT RAT RAT has significant potential. Its puppetry, costumes and site-specific concept are strong, and its mixture of cuteness, oddness and dark comedy is distinctive. But the piece now needs to decide its central mode: is it a homage to brutal theatre, or a satirical fable about institutional violence? With sharper dramaturgy and a clearer tonal spine, RAT RAT RAT could become a genuinely unsettling and memorable work. At present, it is visually compelling, often funny, and full of promise — but still in search of its final bite.
RAT RAT RAT
Old Operating Theatre
Reviewed on 14th June 2026
by Portia Yuran Li
Photography by Alyssa Tianai Zhou
