In 2004, Mark Russell resigned from his position as Artistic Director of P.S. 122 after more than two decades spent developing the theater into a mecca for wildly adventurous performance art. And he hasn't looked back; in addition to serving as Artistic Director for Portland's Time Based Art Festival, Russell has remained a major force in New York with his Under the Radar Festival, now in its fourth year and headquartered at the Public Theater. The event draws performers and audiences from around the world for what has arguably become the most exciting theater festival in New York City, a town lousy with them. Russell's impeccable taste is integral to Under the Radar's success; as Eric Bogosian – who got his start at P.S. 122 in the 80s – puts it: "Russell is a genius at finding the awkward new stuff, the gems and diamonds no one's noticed yet. If the 'artist is the antenna of the race,' then Mark is the antenna of the antenna."

So what are the curatorial ideas behind Under the Radar? What I’m taking cues from for Under the Radar are European festivals in small cities and film festivals. I really want people to experience this as a film festival, where you buy a pass and go to see as many films as you can in one week, and dive right into it. There are very few festivals in New York City that have the kind of center we’re able to offer here through the Public Theater.

In other words, if you want to find something out about the festival or you want to know more about the artists or if you want to have a drink with someone you can always come to the Public Theater during the two weeks we’re doing this festival. I kept all the ticket prices low just for that; I want people to join the adventure and see something they don’t know that much about. The idea is for people to see something and have a drink and then say, “Let’s see another one!”

If my Aunt Maud, who likes Broadway musicals, agrees to spend a day with me at Under the Radar, what would you recommend seeing? There is no elitist thing going on here; if you give yourself permission to understand it and accept that your reaction is going to be the right one – you don’t have to have a doctorate in performance art to appreciate what these works are doing. And that’s what I apply across all of what I do and believe. There are some shows like Terminus and Church and Mike Daisey that are great scripted theater pieces that someone who is used to Broadway can easily identify with.

A lot of people might categorize the productions in Under the Radar as “experimental theater”. How do you describe the work you’ve helped cultivate over the years? Oh God, it’s always a hard one. Is it performance art? Is it experimental theater? I really think that it’s just good theater, and by that I think good theater always uses the element of surprise and the excellence of craft to deliver a story or mood or feeling or message to an audience. So how we go about that differs so much. I think the most radical thing you can do is do something very well. And something like Mark O’Rowe play Terminus is playwriting but it’s done exceptionally well and with a certain bravado and extremity that is sort of shocking and amazing and totally fun at the same time. And Aunt Maud can come with you as well as the hippest kid next door.

Is there more of an emphasis on solo performers this year? There’s quite a few in the mix, not, you know, for lack of trying to find ensemble works. It’s often the way this work is made because it’s sort of an auteur theater. Someone like Mike Daisey likes to have control of all the elements so that he can do what he wants to do. Same thing with people like Rha Goddess.

Is there a common aesthetic shared by the productions in Under the Radar this year? It’s really quite a bouillabaisse, but there are a couple subsets of aesthetics. One has to do with the next generation of hip hop artists who are creating contemporary theater with hip hop and spoken word. So people like Rha Goddess and Reggie Watts and Suicide Kings and Dael Orlandersmith are coming from spoken word forms but creating theater. And that’s sort of a thread that goes through this. You can kind of see that thread even in Terminus, which is by Mark O’Rowe, who is about the same age as those folks; his play rhymes. And then there are a series of site-specific or site-eccentric spaces; one is at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal and one is at the World Financial Center and one is at Veselka restaurant.

What can you tell us about the Veselka show? It’s a beautiful show called Etiquette for two people: you and somebody else. And you go there at the appointed time and get a glass of water and a pair of headsets and some instructions. And you listen to this CD that tells you what to say and different instructions. And you say the lines to the person sitting across from you at the table; you are performing in it. I usually hate this kind of interactive theater but this is beautiful; it’s beautifully done and quite imaginative and really quite moving. It’s a very simple 30 minute piece but the connection you eventually feel with the person sitting across the table from you is really quite stunning. It is like a play and it’s just done with this voice coming through: “Okay. Close your eyes. Open them now. Say, ‘I used to love you.’” It’s great.

I think artists today are trying to reinvent the theatrical experience in so many different ways to find the roots in it. And if there’s any thread that goes through these shows it’s that. What might be experimental about most of these shows is trying to grind theater down or find its essence or amplify it through different media to create these experiences we would label as theater. One of our theater pieces doesn’t have a word in it; the script is all numbers. That’s Poetics: A Ballet Brut. That’s an amazing piece but it could be perceived as a dance concert.

So why isn’t it just categorized as dance? When you see it you realize that these are not dancers; they’re actors. They have a facility of movement but it’s not the same as you would get with the Trisha Brown company. And there’s also sort of an emotion and a language of gesture that they’re using that doesn’t feel “dancerly”; it’s its own form now.

Is there a production that you really wanted to include but it didn’t work out? I wanted to include a piece called Being Harold Pinter and unfortunately it had eleven people in it and they were all in Belarus; they’re part of the Belarusian Free Theater. It’s an amazing piece that I’ve only seen on videotape; it’s based on Harold Pinter’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech and includes scenes from some of his later works that aren’t as well known as The Birthday Party. I wanted to bring that piece over but I just did not have the funds for 11 plane tickets and 11 visas and hotel rooms. So we’re bringing a smaller piece in the hopes that it will build an audience for the time when we want to bring Being Harold Pinter. The piece in Under the Radar is called Generation Jeans and it’s essentially a solo performance with a DJ. It tells the semi-autobiographical story of this theater of resistance that’s grown in Belarus. On August 22nd they were all arrested with their audience as they tried to perform the piece because the government is so oppressive over there.

Photo of Mark Russell by James Morrison.