Opinionist: Under the Radar Festival

Ireland's Pan Pan Theatre, who made a big splash in New York last year with Oedipus Loves You, are back with their latest multi-disciplinary performance piece, The Crumb Trail. Their very loose riff on Hansel and Gretel begins with great promise, as the four-person ensemble appears in the space (littered with musical instruments, overhead projectors, a bread machine, wine, and an axe) and proceeds to hang from a metal bar above the stage. Once gravity wins, they burst into frenzied activity: painting the floor, baking bread, unleashing quirky dance moves, surfing the web and projecting YouTube memes on a giant screen. (Numa Numa, anyone?) For the first fifteen minutes, there's so much happening at once that you wish you had an extra pair of eyes. Yet the piece never quite comes into focus, and the conspicuous lack of narrative isn't matched by an equal degree of aesthetic inventiveness. There are flashes of brilliance throughout, but ultimately The Crumb Trail is lost in a vague, forgettable woodland. (Photo courtesy Oliver Paul.)