Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – At 20, UNDER THE RADAR expands its reach with a blast of out-of-the-box theatrical experiences (Part 2)

• By drediman
• January 21, 2025
• No Comments

My Under the Radar 2025 experience continued with a second week of full immersion. As before, read on for my thoughts on my excursions last week.

SHOW/BOAT: A RIVER
Presented by NYU Skirball Center and Produced by Target Margin Theater

Likely the most anticipated offering of this year’s Under the Radar lineup is Show/Boat: A River, Target Margin Theater’s radical interpretation of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s seminal 1927 musical Show Boat (SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED). Despite its reputation as a landmark of the form — the show is widely considered the prototype for the integrated modern book musical — the well-intentioned work has over time become increasingly problematic in its depiction of Blacks within the context of largely White-centric narratives. The show’s revisal at NYU Skirball is the creation of Target Margin artistic director David Herskovits, whose attempt at recalibrating the musical unfortunately registers as half-baked. Make no mistake, Herskovits has a field day deconstructing the material but is at a loss as to how to put the pieces back together into a clearly repurposed whole. The result is a muddled, unevenly acted and sung production that comes in and out of focus, with the biggest casualty sadly being Kern and Hammerstein’s immortal score. The avant-garde production’s closest kin is probably Daniel Fish’s revelatory re-imagining of Oklahoma! But unlike that daring, visceral experiment, Show/Boat: A River offers surprisingly little in terms of enlightenment and provocation.

TECHNE: FOUR DIGITAL INSTALLATIONS
Presented by BAM and Onassis ONX

One of the most technologically ambitious Under the Radar offerings of this year’s crop is TECHNE (RECOMMENDED). Curated by Onassis ONX, the ambitious endeavor uses generative Artificial Intelligence to essentially animate four distinct digital installations, which come alive real-time in an immersive audio-visual environment set up at BAM Fisher. The experience is vital and alive, akin to watching draftsmen at work. Suffice to say, there’s a unique exhilaration with the knowledge that these films are being crafted simultaneously to being consumed. Indeed, that these works manage to achieve the same kind of exciting spontaneity as live performances controversially points to the potential role of AI in generating arts content. As of writing, I’ve only seen Margarita Athanasiou’s Voices, an involving and entertaining documentary on the topic of the history of mediums and New Age spiritualism vis-a-vis early feminism. Over the course of the festival’s two weeks, Voices is joined by three other digital installations — John Fitzgerald and Godfrey Reggio’s The Vivid Unknown, Marc Da Costa and Matthew Niederhauser’s The Golden Key, and Stephanie Dinkins’ Secret Garden.

THE DAN DAW SHOW
Presented by Performance Space New York

Arguably one of the most attention-grabbing, truth-seeking performances I’ve come across at this year’s festival was The Dan Daw Show (RECOMMENDED). The show is written and performed by disabled performance artist Dan Daw, who is joined onstage by fellow performer Thomasin Gülgeç. In the piece, Daw uses movement and dance as a means for self-excavation, in the process inverting of shame — particularly as it relates to disability and sexuality — into resilience, pride, and empowerment. The result is potent and deeply personal pas de deux that dives headlong into unabashed role-playing and kink play. Unsurprisingly, The Dan Daw Show is not for everyone, especially the faint of heart (the show is recommended for those 18 years and up). Apart from explicit depictions of sadomasochism and other examples of extreme sex, the piece also bombards the senses (brash lighting, a thumping soundtrack), making the overall experience a potentially overwhelming one. But once you get past the shock value of it all, you’ll find great intimacy, trust, and care underlying Daw’s fearless act of bravery and self-love. The production has been directed by Mark Maughan, who provides a laidback and relaxed environment in which Daw and Gülgeç can explore and lose themselves in the moment.

SOHO REP IS NOT A BUILDING. SOHO REP HAD A BUILDING…
Presented by Soho Rep/Walkerspace

In Soho Rep Is Not a Building. Soho Rep Had a Building… (RECOMMENDED), Soho Rep and Under the Radar have given dedicated theatergoers a chance to properly bid farewell and pay their respects to Walkerspace, Soho Rep’s austerely-appointed former home and an indisputable hub for experimental theater over the years (the final production in the space was Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Alina Troyano’s Give Me Carmelita Tropicana!, a fittingly raucous and bittersweet swan songs to the space). Since opening its doors in the 1990s, the venue has been the nurturing and integral launching pad for many notable playwrights. In my time attending shows at Walkerspace alone, I’ve seen the likes of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon), Jackie Sibblies Drury (Fairview), Hansol Jung (Wolf Play), Shayok Misha Chowdhury (Public Obscenities) make names for themselves in breakthrough works that have come alive with ferocity, intimacy, and honesty. Less a performance and more of an open invitation wake — with a smattering of featured guests and live events programmed in — Soho Rep Is Not a Building has provided much needed closure for those morning the loss of a venue that has sprung so much blazing theatricality.

CUCKOO
Presented by Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC)

In terms of description, few can compare in strangeness to the blurb of Jaha Koo’s solo show Cuckoo (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (“A journey through the last 20 years of Korean history told by a bunch of talkative rice cookers”). However, out of that bizarre description — and yes, there are talking rice cookers featured in the show — has come one of the most unexpectedly poignant shows of Under the Radar. Despite its slick, expertly executed multimedia presentation, Cuckoo is at its core a quietly harrowing portrait of a generation of South Korean youths, particularly young men who have succumbed to the difficult realities that have accompanied the economic woes of their country — many of whom have fallen prey to mental illness and suicidal tendencies. Rather than being prescriptive and didactic, the gently introverted Koo — who gives a sensitive, efficient performance — smartly evokes simply mood and swaths of feeling in his meditation on happiness and the subtle interconnectedness between the well-being of a nation and the psyches of its citizens.

OLD COCK
Presented at 59E59 Theaters and Mala Voadora, in association with Twilight Theatre Co. and Peacedale Global Arts

Then there’s Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright Robert Schenkkan’s OLD COCK (RECOMMENDED) at 59E59 Theaters. Written in collaboration with Portugal theater company Mama Voadora (in association with Twilight Theatre Co. and Peacedale Global Arts), the hour-long political satire is told through perspective of “The Rooster of Barcelos” — among the most popular of Portuguese souvenirs, played with verve by actor Jorge Andrade (who also directs the production) — who recounts the story that has made him a legend amongst his countrymen. Once done with his tale, our narrator engages in an increasingly heated debate with Prime Minister Salazar, the fascist dictator who ruled Portugal for four decades. Although the play’s premise on paper seems a tad out there, OLD COCK is actually one of the most conventional entries of this year’s Under the Radar festival. Throughout, Schenkkan’s writing is accessible and evocative, and the playwright’s intent to expose the detrimental fictions of Salazar’s dictatorship is clearly telegraphed.

SHUJI TERAYAMA’S DUKE BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE
Presented by Japan Society

Finally there’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle (RECOMMENDED), which was performed by Project NYX at Japan Society. The brainchild of Shuji Terayama — the father of Japanese underground theater movement of the 1960s and 1970s — the production uses the French gothic horror legend of Bluebeard as the inspiration for its wildly unhinged meta-theatrical musings that blur the line between theater and reality. As if to invert the dark and gruesome tale of the oppression of women, Terayama channels voluptuous feminine and even queer energy to create maximalist entertainment — a giddy blend of cabaret, circus arts, live music-making, magic show, dance, burlesque, and of course avant-garde theater (in their deliciously distracting way of camouflaging the realities of life, these surreal flights of fancy often reminded of the Stephen Schwartz musical Pippin). This more-is-more, anything goes aesthetic was quite the sight to behold, and as intended, the unrelenting spectacle ultimately all but beats the audience into submission. I applaud the uncommonly large Japanese cast — the production was performed in Japanese with English supertitles — whose frolicking energy bristled with infectious joy, bringing Under the Radar 2025 to a celebratory close.