Paradiso

See it if you like experiments in theater that also profoundly engage deep questions about life & death.

Don't see it if you only want to see conventional plays.

Also Unfolding in the huge white cube of a Chelsea art gallery, Richard Maxwell's "Paradiso" is part play, part dance, part art installation. It begins when the gallery’s glass wall opens & in drives a white SUV emitting ambient music – quite a dramatic entry. A door to the SUV opens. Out pops a short roving metal rack on wheels that stops to deliver, in an electronic voice, a prologue that seems to set the play post-civilization. The rest of the piece is structured around 3 monologues, delivered by 3 live actors who exit the SUV. One monologue describes the death of a loved one; another, the journey of humankind; a 3rd, a dialogue with a higher power. In between, the 4 performers do dance moves, much of it suggesting purposeful human activity, & act out a few short spoken scenes – the last with the robot. At the end the humans pile back into the SUV & drive off. But the robot remains to spew out, on a long thin column of paper, the play’s text. I was enthralled from beginning to end.... Read more Read less

See it if you enjoy experimental theater in unconventional spaces where a car is driven into the space and there is a cute robot. Great acting also.

Don't see it if you don't like contemporary art or weird risk tasking theater. It's a short play, but you might be bored if you don't like poetic works.

See it if you like experimental theater, post apocalyptic settings.

Don't see it if you expect a traditional story and like to relax and enjoy a show rather than be forced to think too much to understand what is happening.

See it if Extremely memorable lowkey dramatic gestures -- really playful and good natured and exciting but also so CHILL.

Don't see it if Not for everyone! Actors speak in monotone and the writing is dense.

See it if you like abstract and difficult plays, that are on the verge of being just a boring scam.

Don't see it if ... if you want to save yourself 90 minutes of non-sense pseudo-philosophical theater.