Opinionist: Under the Radar Festival
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<p>Clocking in at two and a half hours, <em>Architecting</em> is over twice as long as the average production at <a href="http://publictheater.org/content/view/148/">Under the Radar</a>, the internationally-sourced theater festival <a href="http://gothamist.com/2008/01/10/mark_russell_un.php">curated by Mark Russell</a>, former artistic director of PS 122. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/theater/11orel.html">The TEAM, an NYC-based company</a> who created <em>Architecting</em>, is going for an epic "road tripping requiem for modern America," with a loose narrative about a tasteless Hollywood remake of <em>Gone With the Wind</em> produced in New Orleans, drawing parallels between post-Katrina squalor and post-Civil War devastation. There are compelling ideas manifest in <a href="http://www.theteamplays.org">The TEAM</a>'s execution, and the performers are smart, diligent practitioners of the Experimental Theater Wing/Wooster Group aesthetic, but after a while the enterprise begins to sag, and the large scale video projection seems de rigueur, not essential. <em>Architecting</em>'s blueprints have been finalized, but one senses a volatile 90 minute gem waiting to be coaxed out of these ambitious designs.</p>
<p>Playwright Tim Crouch's affecting play <em>England</em> is performed in the Chelsea Art Museum, where two pseudo-guides lead audience members on an hour-long tour through their personal trauma. Crouch and Hannah Ringham portray the guides, and begin the tour with a cheeky, wide-eyed enthusiasm for art, which they freely admit to knowing nothing about. But their boyfriendâCrouch and Ringham seem to represent a single characterâis a collector, and they're much more comfortable talking about his relationship with art. What starts out whimsically soon takes a tragic turn, and the mood is only enhanced by Dan Jones's portentous, ambient sound design, which after thirty minutes erupts into a thunderous cacophony, as if the museum is collapsing in on itself. Escaping the din, the audience is escorted down to basement, where chairs (thank you!) await. The second half is marked by an unsettling narrative twist that might have been maudlin in lesser hands, but Crouch and Ringham have perfect pitch, and the final sixty seconds are utterly transporting. </p>
<p>Ireland's Pan Pan Theatre, who made a big splash in New York last year with <a href="http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/05/24/theater/reviews/24oedi.html?scp=1&sq=oedipus&st=nyt"><em>Oedipus Loves You</em></a>, are back with their latest multi-disciplinary performance piece, <em>The Crumb Trail</em>. Their very loose riff on <em>Hansel and Gretel</em> begins with great promise, as the four-person ensemble appears in the space (littered with musical instruments, overhead projectors, a bread machine, wine, and an axe) and proceeds to hang from a metal bar above the stage. Once gravity wins, they burst into frenzied activity: painting the floor, baking bread, unleashing quirky dance moves, surfing the web and projecting YouTube memes on a giant screen. (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60og9gwKh1o">Numa Numa, anyone</a>?) For the first fifteen minutes, there's so much happening at once that you wish you had an extra pair of eyes. Yet the piece never quite comes into focus, and the conspicuous lack of narrative isn't matched by an equal degree of aesthetic inventiveness. There are flashes of brilliance throughout, but ultimately <em>The Crumb Trail</em> is lost in a vague, forgettable woodland. </p>
<p>From the Netherlands comes <em>LIGA</em>, a mildly amusing lark by the Kassys ensemble, in which a group of rambunctious actors take over a stage strewn with eclectic objects and behave like children discovering the world as if for the first time. Anyone who's taken an introductory improv class will be familiar with the exercise, and perhaps wonder whether it's such a good idea to present it as a finished work of theater. But though the show feels too cute by half, there's something ultimately winning about the troupe's awkward enthusiasm. Their goofy antics are somewhat balanced by a wearied onstage sound and lighting operator, who occasional intercedes to save the "children" from total Pandemonium. The show's director also barges in to steer her actors into their silliest scene, a festive barbecue reenacted with ridiculous props, which is probably funnier than it sounds. As a whole, the 70 minute <em>LIGA</em> feels light as airâperhaps too light for some tastes, but at least you walk out with room for more.</p>
<p>Idiosyncratic performer <a href="http://reggiewatts.com/">Reggie Watts</a> first caught our eye at <a href="http://gothamist.com/2008/01/17/under_the_radar_1.php">last year's Under the Radar</a>, and we've been following his culture-blending, genre-defying, spoken word act around town ever since. Apparently, we're not alone, because he's reached that regrettable stage when a somewhat "underground" performer begins drawing irritating fans eager to demonstrate their hipness by laughing loudly and indulgently at the slightest onstage gesture. Oh well, it had to happen eventually. </p><p></p>Watts's newest show, <em>Transition</em>, continues along the same lines as last year's <em>Disinformation</em>, with his signature linguistic cherry stem-twisting in full comedic force. Abetted by an eager team of three performers and dancers, not to mention his indispensable video and voice sampling equipment, Watts's vision of an "absurdist theatrical cabaret" is fully realized here, albeit in slightly less cohesive form than <em>Disinformation</em>. But to describe <em>Transition</em>'s lunacy would be to minimize it, so let's just say the show draws inspiration from such sources as <em>Teen Wolf</em>, Sasquatch, Stevie Wonder, and the apocalypse. Just trust us and go see Reggie Watts now, so you can join the annoying ranks of fans talking about how they caught his act before he became a big star.