A Brooklyn theater company presents “Blood Play,” a darkly comic thriller set in a 1950s suburb of Chicago. (Javier Oddo)
Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s “Life and Times: Episodes 1-4” can be viewed in three separate parts or in one marathon 11-hour performance. (Nature Theater of Oklahoma)
You can say one thing about this year’s Under the Radar festival: It has something for every attention span.
Do you suffer from theater-induced attention-deficit disorder? There are three shows that clock in under an hour, including “Hamlet, Prince of Grief,” a 30-minute micro-version of Shakespeare’s classic, set in the Middle East.
Can’t get enough marathons? Check out the Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s “Life and Times: Episodes 1-4.” It can be seen either in three parts ranging from 2 to 3 1/4 hours each — or in one butt-numbing, nearly 11-hour endurance contest.
But what has festival director Mark Russell really excited about this year’s ninth edition is that the whole shebang will be presented at the Public Theater’s newly renovated home on Lafayette Street.
“This is the first time we have Under the Radar under one roof,” he says of the 12-day festival, which starts Wednesday. “We wanted to celebrate having the lobby back and all the changes that have happened here.”
One of the biggest perks — along with the fact that tickets are just $20 — is being able to mingle with the artists in the Festival Lounge in the lobby — something Russell calls “the best kind of post-show discussion.”
Then again, you may want to have a translator handy: That “Hamlet” is in Farsi, with English supertitles, while “C’est du Chinois” — about Chinese immigrants in Holland — is performed in Mandarin, without translation.
“By the end of the hour,” Russell promises, “you’ll know quite a bit more Mandarin than you used to.”
All told, the festival includes a dozen shows from other countries, including Iran, Belarus, the Netherlands, China, Japan and Australia.
Among the better-known companies on the roster are NYC’s Elevator Repair Service, which gave us that “Great Gatsby” marathon, “Gatz”; Belarus Free Theatre, of last year’s “Being Harold Pinter,” and Nature Theater of Oklahoma (the telephone conversation-inspired “No Dice”).
Among this year’s more provocative offerings are “2 Dimensional Life of Her,” which combines animation, drawing, puppetry, projection and paper; “Zero Cost House,” a meditation on Thoreau’s “Walden” described as “a stripped-down work of anti-theater”; and “Ganesh Versus the Third Reich,” in which the elephant-headed god travels through Nazi Germany to reclaim the ancient Hindu symbol of the swastika.
And then there’s “Life and Times: Episodes 1-4,” based on a transcript of recorded phone conversations with a 30-something female company member in which she recounts the story of her life.
“They thought it would be a 2-hour conversation,” Russell jokes. “It turns out that this woman has a really great memory.”
Nor is the work possibly even halfway done, he says of “Life and Times,” which will continue at the Public through Feb. 2 after its brief festival run. “Eventually it might be 24 hours long.”
Among the companies making their festival debut is the Brooklyn-based Debate Society (“Buddy Cop 2”) with their ninth and latest work, “Blood Play.” Set in a Chicago suburb in the early 1950s, it’s a darkly comic thriller with mythic elements. When it opened last year at Brooklyn’s Bushwick Starr, one reviewer described it as “relatable and still obtuse.”
Hannah Bos, the 33-year-old actress/playwright who creates the company’s shows with writer and performer Paul Thureen and director Oliver Butler, says that appearing in the festival was “one of our dreams.”
Even though the Village Voice hailed the troupe as the “Best Argument for Devised Theater,” Bos says that the company still considers itself very much under the radar.
“We still do stoop sales and chili cook-offs to pay for our shows,” she says. “A lot of people still don’t know who we are.”
Given the success of previous Under the Radar companies — like Belarus Free Theatre, which enjoyed a post-festival off-Broadway run — that may not be the case for much longer.
Under the Radar runs Wednesday through Jan. 20 at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St. For tickets and times, call 212-967-7555 or visit publictheater.org.