Page-2 | REVIEW: ‘Super Night Shot’ starts Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival | New York Theater | NewJerseyNewsroom.com -- Your State. Your News.

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Then they rush back to the Public where the four unedited films are played simultaneously against a live sound/music mix. Depending upon the people the performers engage with on the East Village streets, these hour-long films apparently can change nightly from charming to creepy.

We got a cute version on Thursday evening.

The only part about “Super Night Shot” that might be considered actual live theater happens at the beginning, as several hundred audience members mill about the under-reconstruction lobby at the Public while waiting to enter the Newman space. Ushers carve an aisle amid the throng and soon enough the four Gob Squad-ers joyfully jog past everybody, their video cameras still running. Then we follow them into the theater and watch their movie.

The final seconds of the four films conclude in the Public’s lobby, so the audience got a kick out of seeing themselves in it as well.

Since I am neither a movie nor a TV reviewer, I won’t say much else about the video. But the weather was nice and the Gob Squad ran into a bunch of cheerful, helpful people and so the results were, um, whimsical. From the looks of it, the performers improvise from a basic scenario while packing animal masks and other props. So there’s a coordinated method to their seemingly spontaneous madness.

But it’s video. Not until their curtain call do the performers appear on the stage where the four films have played out across adjoining screens. Call me an old-school purist, but I don’t understand how such an event constitutes theater. From the looks of “Super Night Shot,” Gob Squad doesn’t appear to be a company likely to register on my kind of radar.

Under The Radar Festival continues through Jan. 15 at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street (and several other venues), New York. Call (212) 967-7555 or visit www.publictheater.org.