The brand new present “Dead as the Dodo” opens with the phrase “Bone!” Adopted by “Loss of life! Loss of life! Loss of life!” It isn’t the kind of dialogue you’d anticipate from one thing marketed for ages 7+, however irrespective of how younger the viewers members, the corporate Whack Whack by no means underestimate their intelligence and willingness to have interaction with severe points.
This type of experimentation is par for the course for the yr course Under the radar competition, now on levels in New York. It is simply that Useless as a Dodo, considered one of 33 works within the competition, does higher. From a proper standpoint, that is among the many most relentlessly creative items of theater I’ve seen within the final yr.
Written and directed by Gwendolyn Warnock and Kirjan Waage with the assistance of the ensemble, the piece follows the adventures of a long-dead boy and his greatest buddy, the dodo – a flightless fowl that has been extinct for the reason that seventeenth century – in a ghostly underworld. At first, each have been become skeletons, and the motion begins with the boy on the lookout for bones to exchange the lacking ones.
The present on the Baruch Performing Arts Heart by way of Feb. 9 is as achingly poetic as The Nightmare Earlier than Christmas. It immerses the viewers in a fantasy universe – at one level plunging beneath the fiery river Styx – because of unusually creative puppetry (Waage designed the figures), projections (by Erato Tzavara), lighting (by Daphne Agosin) and audio (sound and authentic music by Thor Gunnar Torvaldsson).
The hell we’re in could also be of our personal making: ‘Useless as a Dodo’ concludes Wakka Wakka’s eco-minded trilogy, following ‘Animal RIOT’ and “The Immortal Jellyfish Girl”, and offers with the evolution of the pure and human worlds. The larger story right here is a couple of new starting, and it is instructed magnificently.
A rejection of the naturalism that tends to dominate mainstream American theater is amongst Underneath the Radar’s guiding rules. The competition is taking severe form, and all of the performances I noticed on this yr’s cohort pushed route to the fore, even within the documentary play “Space Bridge”, which ended its quick run this weekend at La MaMa, in collaboration with En Garde Arts and Visible Echo.
Conceived and directed by Irina Kruzhilina, SpaceBridge follows the lives of a gaggle of precise younger Russian refugees in present-day New York and, to a lesser extent, among the American kids they meet right here. The kids’s tales appeared in theater workshops through which they participated, and now they’re retelling them below the benevolent gaze of Samantha Smith (performed by Ellen Lauren). a real American peace activist who died aged 13 in a aircraft crash in 1985. Right here she is introduced as a mild grownup.
“SpaceBridge” may have benefited from its inherent emotional energy — many of the Russian kids within the present are nonetheless ready to listen to about their asylum claims — however Kruzhilina did a variety of theatrical work. It varies dramatic codecs, from reenactments to vaudeville sketches; digs the complete depth of the La MaMa stage; and ingeniously integrates props like old school trunks. There is a dynamic to the storytelling that by no means falters, particularly when the present emphatically touches on down-and-dirty political maneuvering.
At additional elimination – actually so – from such earthly cares it’s “The Seventh Voyage of Egon Tichy.” [Redux],” which is at New York Theater Workshop’s Fourth Avenue Theater by way of January 26.
Based mostly on a narrative by science fiction author Stanislav Lemm, the present — created by director Jonathan Levine, playwright Josh Luxenberg and performer Joshua William Gelb — takes place on a spaceship the place a lone traveler finds himself in a space-time pickle. When it was an earlier model streamed live July 2020Gelb interacts with a number of variations of himself because of simultaneous video modifying (this model continues to be obtainable on YouTube). Amazingly, that is nonetheless the case within the new iteration, the place we are able to watch Gelb in individual on each screens that encompass his small efficiency space. A lot of the present is spent questioning which of the Gelbs on display screen is stay and which is pre-recorded after which blended in manufacturing.
Sadly, the storytelling cannot deal with gimmicks, and “Egon Tichy” turns into annoyingly repetitive. That is exacerbated by the padded operating time – the present has grown from 35 minutes to virtually an hour. Does the inventive group really feel they want this to justify a stay model for paying prospects?
The final two works I noticed additionally struggled with their comparatively economical lengths.
After a sojourn in Portugal, Robert Schenkkan—greatest identified for his Lyndon B. exhibits. Johnson “All the Way” and “The Great Society” wrote a brief satire, “Old Rooster” (in theaters 59E59 till January 19) for the Porto firm Flying suitcase and its inventive director, Jorge Andrade.
Andrade is alone on stage, in a glittering feathered swimsuit, as Barcelos’ fabulously combed rooster, a hen who’s National emblem of Portugal. The monologue turns into dialogue when Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (aka Andrade), who dominated Portugal with a dictatorial fist till 1968, seems on a video display screen. The Rooster pits him in opposition to the manipulation of nationwide symbols for autocratic ends – which sounds tragically acceptable, however the makes an attempt at humor fall flat and the makes an attempt at political stress really feel boring.
Geopolitics additionally performed an vital function below Amir Reza Kuhestani “Blind Runner”. The play, which is introduced by St. Ann’s Warehouse till 24 January, with Waterwell and humanities and schooling group Nimruz, goals to be a suspenseful thriller a couple of blind Iranian lady who tries to run the size of the tunnel between France and Britain at evening earlier than trains resume operating.
However this political assertion solely takes up the previous couple of minutes of the present. Most of it consists of cheeky conversations between the would-be runner’s information (Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh) and his imprisoned spouse (Ainaz Azarhoosh) throughout his weekly visits to her. Koohestani is much better as a director than a screenwriter, and he levels these static interactions in a smooth, austerely elegant method—Éric Soyer’s lighting carves out his minimalist set with the imposing energy of a German Expressionist movie.
After all, each competition might be completely different. There aren’t any certain bets, however performances that appear value attending embrace a manufacturing of Shuji Terayama’sDuke Bluebeard’s Castle” (Jan. 15-18 on the Japan Society), giving us a glimpse into experimental Japanese theater. Likelihood is good it is at the least not like many others on the town.
Underneath the radar
The competition runs till January 19, however some productions have longer runs; utrfest.org.