World of Wires

In his latest, heavily mediated assemblage, high-tech auteur Jay Scheib trails behind his performers with a video camera, feeding strikingly composed, deep-focus images to monitors and screens. Normally, I go to the theater to evaluate language, acting styles and set design; I don’t find myself admiring canted close-ups or photojournalistic jitter. Taking inspiration from a 1973 sci-fi TV miniseries by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Scheib spins out a loopy, sexy and conceptually dense whodunit about the porous borders between real life and simulations.—David Cote