UNDER THE RADAR FESTIVAL

January is always stock-taking time, and when the beginning of the year is also the beginning of a decade, you can expect wall-to-wall self-examination. But few exercises in introspection are likely to have the extroverted flair of the Under the Radar Festival, one of New York’s most venturesome (and international) gatherings of experimental-theater artists.

This year’s offerings, which run Jan. 6 to 17 at the Public Theater and other Manhattan performance spaces, dissect a multitude of subjects cultural, political, physical and cosmic, with a particular emphasis on very free-handed documentary and archival approaches. The avant-garde veterans Anne Bogart and Charles L. Mee are reassembling “American Document,” Martha Graham’s 1938 probing of this Puritan country’s past, while “Chautauqua!,” from the National Theater of the United States of America, takes its stylistic cues from the lecture circuit of the late 19th century.

Dangerous Ground Productions translates John Cassavetes’s “Husbands,” a milestone in improvisational film of the 1970s, into the language of theater. Andrew Dawson, a British director and performer, does his own solo (and technology-free) interpretation of a documentary on the Apollo 11 moon landing in “Invisible Atom.” A Brecht classic learns to sing contemporary pop in “Versus — In the Jungle of the Cities,” from the Nowy Teatr of Poland. And Richard Maxwell, New York’s leading auteur of the theater of disaffection, promises to drag video recordings into the third dimension with “Ads.”

Expect to cross into the fourth, fifth and other dimensions before the festival ends. BEN BRANTLEY

The Under the Radar Festival runs Jan. 6 to 17 at various Manhattan performance spaces. Information: undertheradarfestival.com.

FROM THE FRINGE

The New Victory Theater begins the year with a show that’s definitely not just for kids, although it is actually performed by a troupe of 13 rambunctious adolescents. The admonitory title, “Once and for All We’re Gonna Tell You Who We Are So Shut Up and Listen,” belies the fundamental sweetness and obliqueness (and the shortness!) of the show, which was one of the standout productions at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe two summers ago.

A production of the Belgian Ontroerend Goed company, the show is a rowdy hour of horseplay that seems wholly spontaneous — until the kids stop splashing around with paint and Silly String, troop offstage and then re-enter to start the whole process over again. Directed by Alexander Devriendt, “Once and for All” is a funny, novel and oddly moving evocation of the merry disorder of young consciousness. CHARLES ISHERWOOD

The show runs Jan. 7 to 17 at the Duke on 42nd Street, 229 West 42nd Street, Clinton; NewVictory.org or (646) 223-3010.

MORE THEATER

Young Jean Lee pounces on big themes in her plays — Christianity (“Church”), African-Americans (“The Shipment”), Asians (“Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven”) — with a provocative, unbalanced and satirical sensibility. It’s like looking through glasses with one cracked lens.

Ms. Lee’s latest piece, “Lear,” a commission she wrote and directed for Soho Rep, is described by the company as a collision between Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and Ms. Lee’s own ideas on mortality and family. With choreography by Dean Moss, this dance-inflected trek through dark territory puts the focus on the children of the aged King Lear and of Gloucester, and their indifference to their parents’ suffering. “Lear” sans Lear? It all sounds fantastical, askew and dramatic.

Another show of note this month is so downtown (or is it uptown?) — it’s in Massachusetts. Elevator Repair Service’s “Gatz,” at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, is a six-hour book-reading-cum-theater piece based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Great Gatsby.”

The show, set in an office, opens with a man reading aloud Fitzgerald’s novel — and he just keeps reading till the end — as his co-workers bring Gatsby’s world to life. That may not sound enticing, but since its debut in 2006, critics have praised the production, which can be seen in two parts or on one day with a dinner break. Chris Jones, writing in The Chicago Tribune, called it “revolutionary.”

The New York-based Elevator Repair Service had been prevented from mounting “Gatz” in its hometown because producers of another show based on “The Great Gatsby” held the local performance rights. Now the Fitzgerald estate has given the go-ahead and there are plans for a New York production next season. Attention, marathon theatergoers: if you can’t wait until then, it might just be worth the trip. ERIK PIEPENBURG

“Lear” starts Thursday at Soho Rep, 46 Walker Street, near Broadway, TriBeCa; (212) 352-3101; sohorep .org. “Gatz” also starts Thursday at the American Repertory Theater, 64 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Mass.; (617) 547-8300; americanrepertorytheater.org.

JUDGED from the long view of history, the Broadway musical’s rise, reign and fall appear to have taken place in a flash. This American-born art form reached its artistic peak in the 1940s and began a slide toward senescence a mere two decades later. But take a stroll through Times Square today, and a different point of view asserts itself. The tourists thronging the area aren’t coming for the lawn chairs, after all, or the peculiar chain stores devoted to candy brands.

The primary business that makes this clogged artery the tourist heart of the city is theater, and the musical remains its driving force. Stand in the lobby as audiences emerge from “Wicked” or “Billy Elliot,” and you surf a tide of happy babble. The theatergoers clogging the tchotchke dispensaries in the Gershwin or the Imperial Theaters may well look back on the experience with the same ineffable glow that is driving audiences of another generation to the revival of “South Pacific.”

There are even signs that the art form’s habitual uncoolness, dating back at least a quarter-century, has begun to recede. In the past 10 years Broadway musicals have been filmed with surprising frequency: “Mamma Mia!” and “Nine” and “Hairspray” and “The Phantom of the Opera” and “Chicago,” which even grabbed some big gold at the Oscars. What is “Glee,” the popular, smart-alecky comedy on Fox, but a musical writ small and delivered in weekly installments? “High School Musical,” the Disney Channel television movie that depicted kids breaking into song old-school Broadway-style, became a phenomenon — at least if you had kids between 5 and 12 when it burst upon the scene.

Kid stuff? Maybe so. And the popularity of the defining musical of the decade, that box-office juggernaut “Wicked,” was partly derived from the passionate dedication of tween girls. But the past decade also saw the tentative resurgence of rock ’n’ roll — both the real kind and the blander Broadway approximation (see “Next to Normal”) — as a reliable resource. The most important new musical of the decade, in aesthetic terms, might well be “Spring Awakening,” the smart, dark, angry and intensely powerful show about rebellious German teenagers, with music by a real émigré from the rock world, Duncan Sheik.

The zeroes or the aughts, or whatever the first decade of the new century may come to be called, marked no great epoch of the Broadway musical, but there have been occasional, heartening sparks of aesthetic regeneration. Tossing aside the numerical rigidity of most end-of-an-era assessments, I haven’t put together a Top 10 list. In singling out a half-dozen of the most significant musicals of the decade, my criteria were not exclusively personal or artistic. Some choices typified a significant trend; others marked a peak of achievement or an inflection point.

THE LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA, the delicate, watercolored musical by Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas, makes the grade not for its mass appeal, but because it signals the continuing possibility of superior achievement in the classic mold of musical theater, what the Broadway historian Ethan Mordden calls “the Great Tradition.”

WICKED qualifies as the most significant musical of the decade, primarily because of its status as a global brand (worldwide grosses: $1.7 billion and counting). But it too has a traditional book and employs an original score of songs to tell a story with broad appeal and just a little moral guidance. The major musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein — “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel,” “South Pacific” and “The King and I” — never stooped to sermonizing, but behind them is a moral vision of how humans can and should interact, a strong sense of the power of love as a force for good. “Wicked,” along with “The Light in the Piazza,” represents the continuing vitality of the classic musical formula.

Decry “Wicked” as a bloated, preachy muddle if you will (and yes, I did), but money talks as loudly in theater as it does in other spheres of American life, and if the Broadway musical is to retain any potency as a cultural force, it needs this kind of powerhouse show. The British invasion of the 1980s marked the arrival of the true musical blockbuster; spectacle-driven entertainments like “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Cats,” “Les Misérables” and “Miss Saigon” rewrote the rulebook in terms of longevity on Broadway. But “Wicked” was the only American show to achieve megahit status in the last decade.

Arjun Sandhu asked:


Your London hotel is near a famous museum. It’s almost guaranteed, because London is home to scores of famous museums in a city that is renowned for its history and museums here contain many of the world’s incredible artifacts. They’ve made amends and returned many priceless antiquities to their countries of origin, but London museums are still known the world over for their incredible collections and exhibits. So it is only natural that visitors want to stay close to the array of museums that dot the London landscape. With the help of the Internet, visitors can even coordinate their hotel choice with their museum choices.

Attractions range from Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum to the lofty British Museum, home of the famed Egyptian Hall and some amazing European sculptors. For a more personal glimpse into the past, a visitor could try the Florence Nightingale Museum, Freud Museum, Sherlock Holmes Museum, or Jack the Ripper Walk, which traces the killer’s deadly footsteps. The Victoria and Albert Museum is the jewel of the South Kensington area, which hosts a number of attractions and fine hotels. History buffs will treasure the National Army Museum, National Maritime Museum, and Natural History Museum.

If you like spooky old prisons, you’ve got the Clink Prison Museum, the Tower of London, and the London Dungeon to explore. The art connoisseur will certainly appreciate the Tate Britain Gallery, Tate Modern Gallery, Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the National Gallery. The Design Museum, Clockmaker’s Museum, London Toy and Model Museum, and Bramah Museum of Tea and Coffee cater to specialized tastes.

Whatever your preference, there’s a first-class London hotel within easy walking distance and numerous tube stations to get a visitor to more distant locations. New booking sites on the Internet allow you to search for a London hotel by neighborhood and proximity to various attractions. A helpful website offers maps, tube station locations, photos, and sightseeing tips to make the most of a trip to London without scouring guidebooks for information. Prices and rankings are important criteria, too, but there’s nothing like the convenience of choosing a hotel by location. Your lodging is important, because it becomes a sanctuary for dinner and respite after a long day of exploring the past. In fact, many London hotels are virtual museums all by themselves, offering a glimpse into Victorian and Elizabethan England.

Don’t stay too long in that lovely hotel room, because London nightlife beckons. Combine a trip to the West End theater district with a stop at the Theatre Museum near Covent Garden. The possibilities are endless, but your stay in London isn’t. So choose a London hotel that allows you to make the most of your time, and keep track of the places you don’t visit for your return trip.

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