Theater Minis

OPENING

• Boy Gets Girl — Theater Alliance. Rebecca Gilman’s drama explores the fine line between romance and obsession. Opens tonight at the H Street Playhouse. 800/494-8497.

• Enigma Variations — Washington Stage Guild. A writer agrees to a rare interview, only to have the questions reveal many of his secrets. Opens tonight. 240/582-0050.

• Jesus Hopped the ’A’ Train — Round House Theatre Silver Spring. The prison drama about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the existence of God. Opens Wednesday. 240/644-1100.

• Lady Chatterley’s Lover — Washington Shakespeare Company. The D.H. Lawrence classic about an aristocrat’s affair with her gamekeeper. Opens Saturday at the Clark Street Playhouse. 800/494-8497.

NOW PLAYING

• Cats — Toby’s Dinner Theatre — ***. Toby’s is one of the first theaters to try to re-create the kittenish allure of this Andrew Lloyd Webber musical warhorse, which premiered on Broadway in 1982. The intimacy of the space makes the show less of an empty spectacle and aligns it more closely with its source material, T.S. Eliot’s book “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.” You do miss a complete orchestra as the keyboard-heavy 10-piece orchestra strives not to sound rinky-dink. But matters are helped by the emphasis on full-out choral singing. Costumes and makeup are captivating, and the actors give fetching portrayals of the show’s 26 cats. Through Aug. 8. 410/730-8311. Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

• Children of Eden — Ford’s Theatre — **1/2. Based on a book by Tony winner John Caird, with music and lyrics by Tony nominee Stephen Schwartz, this accessible miniextravaganza is family fun loaded with colorful, familiar characters and visually arresting dance numbers. Its take on Judeo-Christian theology, however, is decidedly nonstandard. Its two acts remanufacture the decline and fall of Adam and Eve and the tempest-tossed voyage of Noah’s ark. The basic stories remain intact. However, the concepts of good and evil are largely peeled away. The youthful cast rocks with infectious enthusiasm, and the time flies if you just want to have fun. But it looks as if there’s no exit from the 1960s. Through June 6. 202/347-4833. Reviewed by T.L. Ponick.

• The Comedy of Errors — Folger Theatre — ***1/2. Hey, listen: This D.C. director named Joe Banno gets together with the Folger, and they decide to set this play about mistaken identity in modern-day Brooklyn. They put New York Italian accents on Shakespeare’s English, and dress up the actors like cheap floozies and two-bit hoods. People play “Godfather” music in the background and the cast is terrific. Hey, what a concept. Shakespeare purists probably won’t like it at all, but what can we tell ya? This manic act of rehab is so nutty it actually works. So go buy a ticket, see? Through May 2. 202/554-7077. Reviewed by T.L. Ponick.

• Elegies: A Song Cycle — Signature Theatre — ***1/2. This hauntingly beautiful production of William Finn’s latest musical, a tender tribute to the people he has loved and lost over the years, is a sung-through piece without any dialogue. The composer is eccentric and nontraditional without resorting to ironic distance, and a zippy neuroticism permeates his music. Director Joe Calarco’s five actors acquit themselves with polished, impassioned performances. Through May 9. 703/218-6500. Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

• Far Away — Studio Theatre — ****. Brought to jolting life by an ideal cast, by artistic director Joy Zinoman and a superlative design team, British playwright Caryl Churchill’s creepy jab to the brain and solar plexus delivers some of the most alarming and exquisite imagery you’ll see anywhere, in a production that burrows in your subconscious like a nightmare. Set in wartime somewhere in the 20th century, the play takes the idea that there is no refuge from battle to almost existential extremes, by subverting civilization’s warmest, fuzziest moments — a parade, a child’s visit to the home of loving relatives — so that our comfort zones are abolished. This is a shuddery warning: The enemy is not in some far-off place, but within and without us. Through May 16. 202/332-3300. Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

• Fathers and Sons — Stanislavsky Theater Studio — . Turgenev’s 1862 novel raised in a still firmly Czarist Russia the divisive issues of class structure, socialism, and revolution: Two old Russian families are trapped in traditionalism even as their own sons, radical university students, rebel against them. Irish playwright Brian Friel’s adaptation, first performed in 1987, carves the essence out of the powerful tale. Yet this yawn-inducing new production is more an endurance contest than a provocative evening of drama. Mr. Friel’s dialogue is windy and didactic, and director Andrei Malaev-Babel’s sense of pacing is funereal. Through Sunday at the Church Street Theater. 800/494-8497. Reviewed by T.L. Ponick.

• Fences — Round House Theatre — **. August Wilson’s “Fences,” part of his 10-play cycle chronicling black American life in each decade of the 20th century, is a play of music, rage and coiled rhythm. Yet it becomes a pedantic harangue in this production. By focusing on the anger of the main character, a talented baseball player in the Negro Leagues who never got a chance in the majors, this staging loses the beat poetry of Mr. Wilson’s dialogue along with its epic sense of tragedy. So the lead becomes not a hero but just a nasty bully, and the play veers into melodrama, squabbling on the earth when it should be reaching for the stars. Through May 2. 240/644-1100. Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

• A Flag is Born — American Century Theater — . Ben Hecht’s screed about the need for a Jewish homeland has not been produced in 56 years. After seeing this torpid production, you can only conclude that some works wither in obscurity for a reason. Unabashed, start-to-finish agitprop, this is a one-act dose of NyQuil distinguished only for its uniformly bad acting, and staging that would make the Ice Age seem like a quickie. As a play, “A Flag is Born” flies at half-mast. Through Saturday at Theater II, Gunston Arts Center. 703/553-8782. Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

• Henry IV, Part 2 — The Shakespeare Theatre — **. “Henry IV, Part 1” examines the impetuousness and wastrel ways of youth. Its companion, Part 2, is often thought of as a richer experience because of its burnished treatment of old age. This production, directed at a processional pace by Bill Alexander, captures the long nap of aging and death almost too well. The gloomy wooden set does little to lift one’s spirits, nor does the uninspired staging. Thankfully, both plays feature the irascible figure of Falstaff, played with zaftig bonhomie by Ted van Griethuysen. In fact, the more seasoned actors run off with the play. Through May 2. 202/547-1122. Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

• Oh, Coward! — Olney Theatre Center for the Arts — *1/2. A celebration of the drollery of English writer and bon vivant Noel Coward, this production is a pastiche of his music hall ditties, vermouth-dry witticisms and memorable lines. The set is perfect, an art deco nightclub in gorgeous black and rose-gold. But the rest is all champagne and no fizz. With Coward, the breeziness must be effortless. This production feels labored and forced, with the cast of three straining for insouciance. In fact, the show is about as airy as a closed-off room. Through May 16. 301/924-3400. Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.

• Rosemary and I — MetroStage — . Alexandria’s doughty MetroStage should be applauded for its gutsy world premiere launch of Leslie Ayvazian’s short drama. But this shapeless effort is not ready for prime time. A “memory play,” it traces the lonely childhood of Julia, the central character (played by the playwright). But the driving force of the play is not in the characters but in the writer. What results is an evening of frequently moving prose poetry delivered by an exceptional cast of professionals. At no time does real drama ever happen. Through May 9. 703/548-9044. Reviewed by T.L. Ponick.

• Senor Discretion Himself — Arena Stage, Fichandler Theater — ***. This exuberant, mischievous production of Frank Loesser’s lost 1968 Mexican musical about the redemption of a town sot is given both corazon and cojones by director Charles Randolph-Wright, who did such an outstanding job with Mr. Loesser’s “Guys and Dolls” at Arena in 2000. The multiethnic cast is on fire. And the performance artists Culture Clash inject the book with a shot of irreverence. The musical is a product of its era and could not be called “culturally sensitive,” but it certainly is a lot of fun. Through May 23. Reviewed by Jayne Blanchard.MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS