Under the Radar: A Fantastic Space Adventure with Dodo and More

The new show “Dead as a Dodo” begins with the words “Born!” followed by “Death! Death! Death!” This isn't the kind of dialogue you'd expect from something advertised as being for ages 7 and up, but no matter how young the audience is, a company called Wakka Wakka has decided to Never underestimate his intelligence and willingness to tackle serious problems.

This kind of experiment is currently taking place on the course of the annual Under the Radar Festival, which takes place on stages across New York City. But “Dead as a Dodo,” one of the festival’s 33 films, is better. From a formal standpoint, this is one of the most consistently original plays I saw last year.

Written and directed by Gwendolyn Warnock and Kirjan Wague with help from the ensemble, the film is set in the eerie underworld and follows a long-dead boy and his best friend, the Dodo (an extinct species since the 17th century). It depicts the adventures of a flightless bird. At first, both are skeletons, and the action begins with the boy searching for bones to replace the lost ones.

The show, which runs through February 9 at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, is as morbidly poetic as “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” It transports the audience into a fantastical world thanks to the fantastic and original puppetry (Wage designed the figures), projections (by Elato Tsavala), lighting (by Daphne Agosin) and audio (sounds and sounds). Immerse yourself in space. Original music by Thor Gunnar Thorvaldsson).

The hell we're in may be of our own making: 'Dead as a Dodo' concludes Wakka Wakka's eco-minded trilogy, following 'Animal RIOT' and 'The Immortal Jellyfish Girl' I am interested in nature and human evolution. world. The larger story here is about new beginnings, and it's told in a gorgeous way.

Rejecting the naturalism that tends to dominate mainstream American theater is one of Under the Radar's key tenets. The festival takes its format seriously, and all of the shows I saw with this year's companions, including the documentary play Space Bridge, co-sponsored by Un Garde Arts, which finished a short run at La Mama this weekend. , was pushing direction to the forefront. visual echo.

Developed and directed by Irina Kurzylina, Space Bridge follows the lives of a group of real-life young Russian refugees living in present-day New York City and, to a lesser extent, the American children they meet here. The children's story was born in a theater workshop they attended, and is now the benevolent story of Samantha Smith (played by Ellen Lauren), a real-life American peace activist who died at the age of 13 in a 1985 plane crash. The eyes are telling the story again. Here she is imagined as a kind adult.

“Space Bridge” could have coasted on its inherent emotional power (most of the Russian children featured in the show are still waiting to hear back about their asylum claims) , but Kurzylina created a very theatrical work. She takes on a variety of theatrical forms, from reenactments to vaudevillian skits. Delve into the entire depth of the La MaMa stage. Creatively integrate props like old-fashioned suitcases. There's a dynamism to the storytelling that never lets up, especially when the show touches sharply on sordid political maneuvering.

Even further removed – literally – from such worldly concerns is Egon Tichy's Redux, on display at New York Theater Workshop's Fourth Street Theater through January 26th. 7th Voyage”.

The show, based on the novel by science fiction author Stanisław Lem, was created by director Jonathan Levin, playwright Josh Luxenberg, and cast Joshua William Gelb, and takes place in a spaceship and stars a lone traveler. finds himself stuck in a time-space pickle. When an earlier version was live-streamed in July 2020, Gelb interacted with multiple versions of himself thanks to simultaneous video editing (that version is still available on YouTube). Surprisingly, that's still the case in the new version, where you can see Gelb in person and on two screens on either side of his small performance area. Much of the show is spent wondering which of the on-screen Gelbs was live and which was pre-recorded and then mixed into the proceedings.

Unfortunately, the storytelling can't keep up with the gimmicks and “Egon Tichy” becomes boring and repetitive. This is made worse by the inflated running time, stretching the show from 35 minutes to almost an hour. Did the creative team think it was necessary to justify a live version for paying customers?

The last two films I saw also struggled with their relatively economic length.

Robert Schenkkan, best known for his work on Lyndon B. Johnson's All the Way and The Great Society, completed his stay in Portugal with the short satire The Old Cock (in 59E59 theaters through January 19th). ) was written. Porto company Mara Voadora and its artistic director Jorge Andrade.

Andrade stands alone on stage in a glittering, feathery costume as the finely combed rooster of Barcelos, a poultry symbol of Portugal's ethnicity. The monologue turns into a dialogue when Antonio de Oliveira Salazar (aka Andrade), who ruled Portugal with a dictator's fist until 1968, appears on the video screen. Rooster questions him about the manipulation of national symbols for dictatorial purposes. This sounds like it has tragic implications, but the attempts at humor fall flat and the attempts to make a political point feel blunted.

Geopolitics also plays a big role in Amir Reza Kouhestani's The Blind Runner. The play, which will be presented by St. Anne's Warehouse in collaboration with Waterwell and the arts and education organization Nimruz until January 24, aims to be a suspense thriller about a blind Iranian woman trying to run through a tunnel that connects France to France. There is. Britain on the night before train service resumes.

However, this political statement only comes up in the last few minutes of the show. Much of it consists of rambling conversations between the runner's ultimate guide (Mohammad Reza Hosseinzadeh) and his imprisoned wife (Ainaz Azarhoush) during her weekly visits. Kouhestani is better as a director than as a writer, directing these static interactions in a sophisticated, rigorous, and elegant manner. Eric Sawyer's lighting sculpts his minimalist sets with the evocative power of German Expressionist cinema.

Of course, every festival has its unevenness. There are no surefire bets, but shows that might be worth a visit include Shuji Terayama's “Duke Bluebeard's Castle,” a glimpse of experimental Japanese theater at the Japan Society from January 15th to 18th; Includes performances of At least not likely to be like other parts of the city.

under the radar
The festival runs until January 19, but some productions will run longer. utrfest.org.