Site-Specific at (?) The Public

This year's Under the Radar festival at the Public Theatre will include three site-specific works, imported from overseas: the English company Rotozaza's Etiquette (a big hit at the Edinburgh last summer). Also from the UK Stan's Café's Of All the People in the World: U.S.A., and the Small Metal Objects by Aussies Back to Back.

Alexis surveys them all in the Voice:

Many site-specific performances rely on unused or abandoned venues, but [Mark Russell, Under the Radar curator] has bucked that trend, deliberately seeking locations with high visibility and plenty of passerby traffic. The goal: to attract as many people as possible, especially non-theatergoers. "The theater that I'm interested in," says Russell, "is always trying to shake people's perceptions . . . about what is a theater. People who'd not be caught dead at the Public Theater—because it's not a great use of their money, they wouldn't know how to act, whatever—suddenly they're in a place where theater confronts them."

Etiquette, in which two audience members play the "roles" of a couple at a restaurant, will be at my beloved Veselka. If nothing else, an excuse for blintzes & borscht.