★★★☆☆ The Visitors
The Visitors comes to the Under the Radar festival from Australia and proves to be a brief, poignant drama about some of its Aboriginal people on a day in 1788 when a dozen boatloads of white settlers unexpectedly landed on their shores. Assembling atop a rocky cliff, the leaders from seven interlocking tribal nations eat raw oysters and stare out at the approaching fleet and together discuss whether it is wiser to welcome these strangers or better to drive them away.
The characters speak their indigenous language during the opening few seconds of Jane Harrison’s 75-minute drama, but they quickly switch into conversational English occasionally dotted by native words. Similarly, the actors, who carry spears, are barefoot while dressed in modern business attire decorated by bits of tribal regalia. The verbal and visual fusion of past and present works: It’s easy to appreciate their points of view.
As these Aboriginal men and women converse for their greater part amicably—often humorously—the cooperative, hospitable, ecologically attuned society they variously represent crystalizes for viewers unaware of Australian history. From afar the Aboriginals later witness somebody on a ship being hanged from a yardarm and they are repelled by the sight of such unbelievable barbarity; the moment underscores the native people’s relatively Edenic world and how the first white settlers to arrive were convicted criminals transported from England.
A well-made, frankly educational, if at times obvious drama, The Visitors provides a sympathetic study of a lovely culture soon to be wrecked by European colonizers. Because the invaders never appear onstage, the shame-on-us factor of the inevitable story is mitigated somewhat for the audience.
Bowing on Thursday at the Perelman Performing Arts Center, The Visitors is co-produced by several Australian companies, principally Moogahlin Performing Arts and Sydney Theatre Company. The author, director, and most of the performers and creative artists claim Aboriginal heritage. Authenticity noted. The handsome production is neatly designed to tour varying theaters by Elizabeth Gadsby. The play is aptly enhanced by an environmental and dramatic sound design from composer Brendon Boney. Fielding these supportive elements, director Wesley Enoch stages the performances in a forthright manner.
The interplay among the seven actors for the most part seems modern, accented by sudden breaks into a different physicality. Zoe Walters and Najwa Adams-Ebel perhaps make the deeper impression by dint of their characters’ respectively fierce and thoughtful personalities, but solid performances also are delivered by Kyle J Morrison, Sean Dow, Guy Simon, Beau Dean Riley Smith, and James Slee-Stanley.
The Visitors opened Jan.22, 2026, at the Perelman Performing Arts Center (PAC NYC) and runs through Feb. 1. Tickets and information: pacnyc.org
12 Last Songs
What promised to be a significant festival highlight was 12 Last Songs, a Jan. 17 midday to midnight event during which a series of 30 real-life workers would perform their jobs. Among people scheduled were a midwife, an astrophysicist, a dog groomer, and a sex worker. Precisely how these workers and their skills were to be curated and celebrated never materialized, unfortunately.
Slated to be produced at La MaMa by Under the Radar and the Working Theater, 12 Last Songs was to be created here afresh with American workers by Quarantine, an English company known for innovative theater projects about everyday life. Sadly, whether by intention or mere incompetence at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the visas for the majority of these overseas theater-makers never materialized and the show was canceled. Ironically, among the locals set for the event was an immigration lawyer. A lunch for the prospective workers was held instead and ticketholders were invited to stop by.
TECHNE Homecoming
Wishing to cover another Under the Radar attraction for this column, I fought my way through a mob clustering around vendors selling knockoff designer bags on the sidewalk to just below Canal Street at 390 Broadway. Behind an 1860 cast-iron facade and up four flights, Onassis ONX presented its TECHNE Homecoming, an event described as “a dynamic exhibition of six large-scale art installations and immersive performances.” Silly me, I mistakenly anticipated live actors would be involved in these works.
Instead, a modest, white-wall gallery displayed along its flanks and within several nooks half a dozen rather abstract higher-tech studies that variously employed video, multimedia, found objects, sculpture, and digital/analog arts to explore themes relating to identity, transformation, and kinship. Let’s skip commenting upon these new works by six artists, since I have no expertise and scarce affinity for advanced technological theater. It is artistry not so much under, as something happening way, way beyond my admittedly old-fashioned radar.
