Under The Radar Festival Announces Full Roster of Shows

Nikolai Khalezin Yana Rusakevich in “Minsk 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker.”

January is a busy month for fans of experimental theater, with two major festivals â€" the Public Theater's Under the Radar and P.S. 122's Coil â€" running concurrently. The Coil Festival announced its program a couple of weeks ago, and a few Under the Radar offerings â€" most notably, “Blood Play” and “Life and Times, Episodes 1-4,” a 10-plus hour epic â€" have already surfaced.

Now the Public has filled in the full prospectus of the 2013 festival, which will present 90 performances â€" all at the company's newly renovated home on Lafayette Street â€" over 12 days, starting Jan. 9. Perfo rmers and ensembles from Iran, Belarus, the Netherlands, China, Japan and Australia, as well the United States, will be represented.

The Belarus Free Theater, which made a splash in the festival with its powerful “Being Harold Pinter” in 2011, this time will present “Minsk 2011: A Reply to Kathy Acker.” Ben Brantley of the New York Times called the production “lacerating” when it was done in London this summer.

Among the most intriguing of the newly announced works is “Ganesh Versus the Third Reich,” in which Australia's Back to Back Theater will explore notions of cultural appropriation by having the elephant-headed Indian god Ganesh travel through Nazi Germany trying to reclaim the swastika as an ancient Hindu symbol.

Also likely to be provocative: the Leev Theater Group, from Iran, which is offering Mohammad Charmshir's “Hamlet, Prince of Grief,” a prequel, of sorts, to the Shakespeare play.

Other troupes who've appeared at the festival before include Pig Iron Theater Company, back with “Zero Cost House,” a collaboration with the Japanese playwright Toshiki Okada; and Elevator Repair Service (“Gatz”), which will present a work in progress, “Arguendo,” about the Supreme Court debates over whether dancing naked in a strip club is a form of artistic expression.

Other works in progress getting single performances are Lemon Anderson's “ToasT,” in which a handful of folk characters (including Jesse James) are together at Attica prison; and “A 20th Century Abridged Concert of the History of Popular Music,” by Taylor Mac.