Too Late! (antigone) contest #2

I've been seeing an awful lot of theater recently, some wonderful, some less so. After an action packed week, I hope to catch up on writing about what I've seen (in both Under the Radar and at PS122's COIL - Festivals! Festivals! How I love them!).

I've just turned in my (woefully rambling) review of Too Late! (antigone) contest #2, and though I believe it's sadly (for you, happily for them) sold out, I just want to urge everyone, if they get the chance, to see anything MOTUS comes up with, as though I've just seen the one show, I'm pretty deeply smitten. After seeing their performance, I felt as if I had been fed pure oxygen and I remembered how thrilling theater could be.

Look. I think I've made it pretty clear how much I hate giving bad reviews, particularly to theater which is so difficult to do, even when it's terrible. I'm much happier writing about stuff I like. I usually find I have much more to say about it, too. So read my happy review of this play. At one point the charming woman pictured at right wrote the phrase "Better dogs than masters" down her arms, but the show is smart enough to know that not all dogs are trained or downtrodden. Dogs can bark and dogs have teeth. Their show has the offhandedness that only hours and hours and hours of rehearsal can achieve. It's kind of a perfect thing.

Under The Radar 2011

Tonight, the 2011 (that date still looks disturbingly science fiction oriented to me) edition of the Under The Radar Festival begins. As always, produced under the auspices of The Public Theater (except, of course, for the first year when it was at St. Ann's Warehouse). The offerings look particularly interesting this year, as companies from around the globe converge on The Public and LaMaMa.

I'm sure many audience members will be particularly interested in seeing the Belarus Free Theatre present their production of Being Harold Pinter. Until very, very recently it was unclear as to whether the company would be able to perform. You see, the name "Belarus Free Theatre" isn't the ironic moniker of some hipper than thou theatrical enterprise out of Bushwick, but an underground group of artists who perform at great personal risk in their native Minsk and abroad. A few weeks ago, Artistic Director Natalia Koliada, was arrested by the KGB during a protest of the recent Belarus election (Surprise. President Lukashenko, the last of the European dictators won with more than 80% of the vote. Most of the opposition was immediately imprisoned. Democracy in action!). Although other company members remain in prison (UPDATE: they're out, and are making their way to NYC!), it looks as though the company will perform as scheduled. According to Artistic Director Mark Russell's facebook page, Natalia and her co-Artistic Director and husband, Nikolai Khalezin, have landed in New York. A statement from Koliada:



I've been tapped to guest blog some reviews by the New York Theater Review this year, so you can check out my coverage there - in addition to that of the other, no doubt wonderful, bloggers.

Under The Radar runs from January 5 through January 16. Information and tickets can be found here.