It's been a minute since we had a Rundown, so that means we're snapping back with QUITE the collection: Radiohead at Coachella, Vikings in London, shows over the phone and on Zoom. Someone tell Bill Hader he's needed on the Weekend Update set because this one has everything.
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Hamlet/The Furies (New York City)
Irondale
From $15; April 10, 2026 through May 16, 2026
The new production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Aeschylus’ The Furies at the Space at Irondale clocks in at about half the time of an unabridged production of Hamlet alone.
Is brevity the soul of wit? Certainly, the first act (Hamlet) ticks right along, with rearranged scenes and heavy cuts. Intermission comes nearly two hours into a two and a half hour show, so I was curious how they’d fit a second play into the rest.
As it turns out, The Furies is told as a paraphrased campfire story, interspersed with American folk music sing-alongs, and it flies by, aided by picnic tables and on-stage snacks for the audience. Especially because it comes so late in the evening, the transition to the warm and inclusive second act is welcome and intriguing.
Both acts are capably acted, if not always adequately heard thanks to unamplified voices in the very large historic Sunday school Irondale inhabits. Nolan Kennedy is a particularly good Hamlet, forceful and scary in scenes with Ophelia. Act two is easier to hear, partially because they invite the audience to sit with the performers.
Irondale clearly wants the audience to consider violence and revenge. The program says it, and there are direct references—by name—to modern politicians in the second act. Unfortunately, the show doesn’t trust its audience. It felt as if they lost their nerve and trust in the ancient texts.
The transition between the traditional portrayal of a very-abridged Hamlet and a mildly-immersive campfire telling of a Greek drama was whiplash-inducing. Act one is too long to simply introduce the theme of revenge and cycles of violence, and too short to fully engage with Shakespeare’s text. Had Hamlet been framed in sketch and outline the way The Furies was, it would have been more cohesive. Instead, we somehow got too much Shakespeare and not enough.
These two texts have much to say in conversation, but so do other ancient works. I hesitate to rewrite a show, but a campfire telling that told the stories of Hamlet and Furies in addition to The Iliad and Medea, for example, would have been powerful and invited even deeper thoughts about cycles of violence. Hamlet/The Furies is an interesting experiment and attempt to talk about an issue just as vital now as it was 2,500 years ago. But as it is, this play is not quite the thing.
— Penelope Ray, NYC Correspondent
Radiohead Kid A Mnesia Motion Picture House (Coachella)
Radiohead
Included with Coachella admission; April 10-19
Touring to Brooklyn, Chicago, Mexico City and San Francisco
Next to the massive Sahara Dance Tent at Coachella was a new mound of grass which many festival goers used as a seating area to watch the goings on. If you looked at that mound from a certain angle, you’d see a queue to enter below with a familiar logo (for some legacy Coachella-goers) over the door. This was the entrance to the Bunker, where frequent former Coachella headliners Radiohead premiered their new immersive Kid A Mnesia Motion Picture House experience before it sets down in four global cities over the next year.
All around the perimeter of the Bunker lies art, graphic design, sculpture, paintings inspired by the very fruitful Kid A and Amnesia era of Radiohead around the turn of the century, giving a creepy sense of dread, corporate control, surveillance, and more importantly, defiance of all those principles. Faceless sculptures creating characters from the album art and the 2021 Kid A Mnesia digital project stood sentinel all throughout the galleries, all surrounding a central square where the main event occurred. In the center, surrounded by four screens, fans would experience a 75-minute film which featured tracks from both albums, with multichannel audio. It’s fantastic to see this most fruitful era of Radiohead getting a more thorough reexamination and development, as they have long been a band that have questioned what being a rock band means, and with a holistic artistic statement like this, one can see that it exists well beyond music alone.
That being said, after experiencing the amazing Gorillaz exhibition, House of Kong, a little more than a month ago, the Motion Picture House experience felt a little passive to me. Damon Albarn and his team created an experience that placed the audience in the middle of a story featuring the music and art of Gorillaz, while Motion Picture House has more of a static art gallery feel to it: lovely to see, but not as enveloping. Which brings me to the film. The multi-channel setup made me think that this would be a Doug Aitken-esque video installation where I needed to look at as many screens as possible, but I was greatly disappointed when I noticed that for 95% of the time, the same content plays on all four screens simultaneously, thus negating a need to be surrounded by video walls, where one would suffice.
All in all, we live in an exciting time where musical artists can think beyond the album and create experiences that immersive heads will flock to. As these mediums develop, all should be lauded, even if some of them only impress a band’s superfans.
– Martin Gimenez, Correspondent At Large
Trefoil FM (Telephone)
Will Watt and Olivia Behr
Free; run concluded; additional stories coming soon
I’ve never been asked by a switchboard operator what my favorite tool is, nor anticipated having to discuss that favorite tool, live, on-air with a radio DJ. The switchboard operator was only taken aback momentarily when I asked if kitchen tools were permitted and said that the last tool I used was an avocado slicer. (I live in California, can’t you tell?)
Trefoil FM is a new collaboration between Will Watt (whose credits include Lennox Mutual, The Tiger’s Bride, and Bottom of the Ocean) and Olivia Behr (co-creator of Lennox Mutual as well as The Pineapple) who have created a new telephone-based theatre piece, relying heavily on solo participant interaction. Given their immense improvisational talents, I found myself immediately transported into another world while chatting with them as I discussed a variety of topics with perhaps the most well-read DJ I’ve ever met.
That said, Trefoil FM, while intriguing, is more of an immersive appetizer than a full-on production, with a short, ten-minute run time. But having had a little taste of the world they’re building, including an alarming allusion to what’s been happening outside the station’s walls, I do hope to hear more from Watt and Behr sooner rather than later.
And it appears this piece is only the first in an ongoing series of short-form experiences from the pair. Prospective callers can expect additional telephone-based stories coming soon, including a 1:1 rom-com from Behr called Lucky Shot, and a new piece called 6-7 - A True Story from Watt, with tickets being released first to their email list.
— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus
The Map and the Echo (Zoom)
Seth Kriebel
£12.50; April 13-16
additional performances later this year
Typically, I don’t love having my webcam on. Nor do I relish being unmuted and occasionally put on the spot by a facilitator. And yet, despite these two things I dislike, I had the distinct pleasure of attending The Map and the Echo, a collaboratively played text adventure game created by artist Seth Kriebel where the audience must work together to explore an unknown place. This piece was originally staged as an in-person experience and has been modified for online play via Zoom; The Map and the Echo’s remote iteration was hosted by Voidspace’s Strange Play festival in association with the London Games Week.
A virtual room full of strangers found themselves standing inside the great hall of a mansion, with exits going upstairs, downstairs, and to the East. There’s no physical map to look at, as it’s all in the artist’s head. Kriebel describes the current setting in great detail to the group and then calls upon one person to commit to what the next action should be. This person essentially acts as the group’s voice, but for a single move. This idea of a collaborative adventure game also has strong parallels to the way that some tabletop roleplaying games were played in the early days of the hobby, where one participant, The Caller, literally became the spokesperson for the group and voiced the actions and decisions the party made to the game master.
However, this is not to say that the person allowed to speak during each “move” was necessarily acting in a dictatorial fashion, but rather the vast majority of players spent time discussing with the group before making a single move. Different philosophies were often proposed, with some proposing the group spend more time in a room looking for any special items to pick up or secret passages and others arguing for making progress towards an obvious goal or task. Half the fun is the discussion about what we collectively would like to do next.
This type of experience often falls apart depending upon the strengths of the personalities within the room. Kriebel deftly models the desired types of interactions with the first few participants, responding with patience and care and the occasional gentle nudge.
For nearly an hour, I forgot where I was and lost myself in an overgrown mansion, filled with treasures and surprises. Kriebel has created a very well-designed container for this type of interactive game that still acknowledges the serendipitous nature of live play; the design work is subtle but exemplary, which means that even shy participants can ease into the setting and the more creative among the assembled still get to flex those muscles, making something unique to our specific group. Even better, the experience seems infinitely repeatable for those who wish to explore different maps each time.
Experiencing the joy of discovery, the agony of momentary defeat, and the pleasures of overcoming obstacles as a group reminded me of why I love playing games; it makes The Map and the Echo one of my favorite pieces of remote performance in a while.
— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus
Vikings (London)
FKP Scorpio Entertainment
From £23; Dock X; through 31 May 2026
FKPE launches another experiential installation in London, this time centered on the histories, myths, and legends of 9th century leaders Queen Kraka and King Ragnar Lodbrok.
Fairly reliable at this stage, FKPE’s expositions follow a formulaic structure of AI-supported digital features like VR headset films and the 360-degree projection room. However Vikings does benefit from more elaborate set design than previously-visited productions: there’s markedly more theatricality to draw visitors into the environment this time. With seamless headset-based narration as we wander through the “forest of time,” an elaborate Yggrasil the World Tree to rest under for the VR presentation, and a mix of touchables including digital maps and ropes for knot tying, there’s plenty to do in the first act.
The next stage is where the producers have changed from previous installations: holding audience back until an entry window allows them to move through the Mists of Time (two transitional spaces which fill with fog to disassociate us from the forest) making for better crowd management and prevents visual interruption of the 360-degree 30-minute film, particularly when the room is dominated by a huge longship we’re welcome to sit in. The longship is the centerpiece, its sail and body integrated into the projections such that at one stage where we’re “sailing” up the coast I see myself and others physically rocking psychosomatically with the movement and I actually get a gentle wave of seasickness, in the best sense.
Vikings shows a clear evolution in delivery for FKPE, though with it comes new pinch points: unlike a standard museum, you cannot easily return to an area you want to revisit without looping all the way around and this is subject to availability and time-locked; the 360-projection room does not allow entry partway through the film so if you linger too long in the Forest you’ll likely have to wait for the next showing, and once you pass out of the film you’ll have to get special assistance to return to the Forest if you didn’t see everything you wanted to.
A nice 90-120 minute diversion for families and fans of the television series and mythos, Vikings is a clever digital/touchable playground for folks who want a bit more out of the museum experience.
— Shelley Snyder, London & UK Curator
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