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Gob Squad’s ever-changing video event appears in experimental theater showcase

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

The new year of theatergoing begins with the eighth annual Under the Radar Festival of fresh theater works sponsored by the Public Theater.

This off Broadway festival offers more than a dozen new works from the US and abroad. Tickets are a relative bargain at $20 and anyone with a yen for experimental theater should check out the roster of events on the Public’s website.

Among the shows winning some buzz are “Sontag: Reborn” regarding the cultural critic’s personal development, and “Goodbar,” an unusual musical theater riff upon “Looking for Mr. Goodbar.”

Usually I do not review these short-run Under the Radar Festival events. But I was encouraged by the Public to check out “Super Night Shot,” which continues through Sunday, as a sample of the work done by a German-British collective known as Gob Squad, which scored a big hit at last year’s festival.

That show, “Gob Squad’s Kitchen (You’ve Never Had It So Good),” said to be a clever reworking of Andy Warhol’s underground flicks, returns to the Public on Jan. 19 for a two-week visit.

After seeing “Super Night Shot,” I’m not so sure I’m the right guy for Gob Squad’s vision of Warhol. Let’s explain:

Scarcely a theater event, “Super Night Shot” is almost entirely a video project. It works like this. An hour or so before each show begins, four performers armed with video cameras fan out separately from the Public Theater. They race around nearby blocks making impromptu movies on a superhero theme that involve stray passersby and culminates in a kiss in the middle of Astor Place.