The Old Woman

Willem Dafoe and legendary performer Mikhail Baryshnikov are a dapper odd couple, forced to deal with the most inconsiderate—and inanimate—of house guests, in this surreal marriage of absurd-ism, pitch-black comedy, and vaudeville from director Robert Wilson.

Based on the recently rediscovered writings of Russian avant-garde author Daniil Kharms—a master of Beckettian and Kafkaesque nonsensical drama—and adapted by Darryl Pinckney, Wilson’s meticulously designed production riffs ingeniously on Kharms’ warped, disorienting world. Exquisitely lit sets flicker between flatness and depth, repeated gestures and phrases become deliriously strange, and Baryshnikov and Dafoe dazzle as two sides of the same corkscrewed mind, tending darkly to their unknown visitor.