Pencil This In

THEATER: There’s a growing cultural phenomenon in Japan called hikikomori, in which young people (as many as 1 million) withdraw into their rooms and refuse any contact with the outside world, sometimes for years. (In America, it’s called adolescence.) The Attic, by acclaimed Japanese playwright Yoji Sakate, is about “a mysterious company that sells tiny ‘attics’ over the internet to people who want to withdraw from society. One man embarks on a quest to find the source of these dwellings after his brother commits suicide in one. On the path to discovering the source are several attic dwellers including a teenage girl and a kidnapper, samurai, polar explorers, soldiers fighting a multi-national war, and many other commonplace and fantastical characters.” John Beer at The Village Voice says, “It might come in a coffin-like box, but this witty, bizarre, and intensely moving production is a rare gift.” - John Del Signore

Friday // 8:15pm // 59E59 Theaters [59 E. 59th St.] // Tickets cost $35

EVENT: It's the 10TH Annual USA Memory Championship! If you have trouble remembering people's names, this probably isn't for you. But it is a spectators sport, so head dover there and watch the mental athletes flex their muscles.

Saturday // 9 to 5pm // Con Edison Auditorium [4 Irving Place] // Free

MUSIC: Come check our Germans at their New York debut this weekend with 120 Days, Shout Out Out Out and Born Ruffians. If you like math-rock and jangly guitars, you'll probably like what you hear. Check out their video for “I Am the Teacher”:

Fun fact: Guitarist/vocalist Leon Taheny produced last year’s Polaris Prize "He Poos Clouds" by Final Fantasy (Arcade Fire’s Owen Pallet).

Saturday // Mercury Lounge [Houston at Essex] //

MOVIE: Maybe you saw Sienna Miller's interpretation of Edie Sedgwick recently in Factory Girl, but now it's time to see the real thing. Poor Little Rich Girl is screening at the Whitney tonight. Warhol’s 1965 surrealist film shows Sedgwick going through her everyday life.

Saturday // 3:30pm // Whitney Museum [945 Madison Ave] // $15

Our other picks for movies this weekend are here.

THEATER: Bixby Elliot’s new play, Hotel Oracle, seems intriguing, if not just for the army of post-it notes marshaled for the production. (Seriously; check out the photos on the show’s website.) Hotel Oracle is a world-premiere and it’s still in previews, but it has something to do with six eclectic strangers - a lonely reporter, a con man, an expectant mother, a mysterious messenger, a pill popper and a kindly hotel clerk - who “leave the familiar comfort of the hotel and set out with the same burning desire; to find the Oracle.” - John Del Signore

Saturday // 8pm // WALKERSPACE [46 Walker St, Tribeca] // Tickets cost $10-15

DISCUSSION: Join P.S.1 on Saturday for a panel discussion on the life and work of Jonas Mekas. The event is being held in conjunction with Mekas's exhibit "Jonas Mekas: The Beauty of Friends Being Together Quartet". On hand for the talk will be film scholar and writer P. Adams Sitney, filmmaker Amy Taubin, and exhibition curator Phong Bui - all discussing Mekas's work as a writer, theorist, and founder of the Anthology Film Archives.

The exhibit runs through April 16.

Saturday // 3pm // P.S.1 Mini-Kusthalle Gallery [22-25 Jackson Ave at the intersection of 46th Ave]

MOVIE: Carlitos Sunday film series will be celebrating New York in film for the next two months! Sunday's feature is Serpico, based, of course, on the real-life story of New York City undercover cop Frank Serpico.

Sunday // 8pm // Carlitos Café y Galería [1701 Lexington at 106th) // Free