No case ever needs to be made on behalf of obvious genius, and certainly not for one whose extraordinary gifts precisely matched his success; when Raphael died at only thirty-seven, he was already celebrated alongside Michelangelo and da Vinci as one of the titans of his time. Brainy, jam-packed and utterly entrancing, Sublime Poetry recognizes that no artist, no matter how seemingly sui generis, arrives (or leaves) via vacuum. Instead, the exhibition treats Raphael’s hand a bit like a point on a timeline, tracing the lessons he learned working under Perugino, his perfecting of Leonardo’s sfumato modeling, and his indelible influence on the artists who assisted him over the years. Perfection is a wholly human concoction, and Raphael’s pursuit of his version of it is mapped most clearly his drawings, which in moments dominate the gallery walls (not unhappily). By what other means of practice could he have arrived at Virgin Marys and Christs who look alighted rather than painted—or have delivered the subjects of motherhood, childhood, and divinity with such potency and utterly no pablum? He approached carnal desire in much the same way. A portrait of his mistress—perhaps caught in the act of seduction, perhaps having just been seduced—captures how sacred worldly love is too. —Jennifer Krasinski

If experimental theater earns some of its stars by bucking the notion of a classic—what revolution relishes the relevance of history?—it managed to produce one in Spider Rabbit. Written in 1971 by Beat poet Michael McClure, this one-hander was once a vehicle for Taylor Mead, Warhol superstar and ingenius goofball, whose performance reportedly ran for two hours, without audience complaint. Anyone watching the pitch-perfect production currently running at La Mama might beg for more than its 45 minutes, but when time’s running out on humanity, more of it would only dilute the potency of the show’s venom. In collaboration with Dan Safer, a deft choreographer of chaos, the sublime Tony Torn dons the mantle—or rather, the ears—delivering McClure’s anti-anti-hero unto the world once more. Absurdity rarely lends itself to a tidy synopsis, so let a few juicy details suffice: a whopper of a rabbit behind a long, unbending web, a couple of carrots, a fart take about as long as an aria, and a supply of hand grenades. Spider Rabbit‘s playing space is all white, as though he exists somewhere between the sanitized and the celestial, which begs the question: What kind of world begets something as yucky yet beguiling as this creature? The only way to answer that is to exit the theater.

—Jennifer Krasinski