PIRATES! (OR, GILBERT AND SULLIVAN PLUNDER'D)
Pirates of the Caribbean? Yes! The Huntington Theatre Company has taken G&S's Cornwall-set musical and moved it to the New World, leaving the music intact but altering the book in the hope of putting a little zing back into the political satire. Can't wait to see what they do with "I am the very model of a modern major general." Gordon Greenberg, who directed earlier versions of the piece at the Goodspeed Opera House and the Paper Mill Playhouse, is at the tiller; the cast includes Anderson Davis as pirate apprentice Frederic and Farah Alvin as his beloved Mabel, a role she previously played at both Paper Mill and Goodspeed. | Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston | 617.266.0800 | Through June 14 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues [no May 26] | 2 pm [May 27, June 10] + 7:30 pm [7 pm May 20] Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | 2 + 7 pm [evening May 31] Sun | $20-$82; $5 senior, military discount; $10 BU community discount; $25 patrons 35 and younger, with ID; $20 back row of balcony; $15 student rush, two hours before curtain, with ID
ROMANCE
The American Repertory Theatre kicks off "Sex, Satire, Romance, and Ducks: A David Mamet Celebration" with the contrarian playwright, filmmaker, and TV producer's "courtroom farce that takes no prisoners in its quest for total political incorrectness." Scott Zigler is in charge of the mayhem as, in the shadow of a Mideast Peace Conference, "an elusive court case is persistently interrupted by domestic squabbles, ethnic slur slinging, and a hallucinating judge." Remo Airaldi, Thomas Derrah, Will LeBow, and The Wire's Jim True-Frost head the cast. | Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle St, Cambridge | 617.547.8300 | Through June 7 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | 2 + 7:30 pm Sun | $25-$79; $10 discount seniors; $25 students; $15 students day of performance; 50 tickets @ $15, day of performance at noon, in person, at the box office | Carolyn Clay's review on page 26
SHAPESHIFTER |
Laura Kepley directs this Trinity Repertory Company world premiere of a new work by Laura Schellhardt. Set on Scotland's Orkney archipelago, Schellhardt's play is about creatures — a dragon, a seal, a swan — who morph into women. All of the transformers are here portrayed by one actress, the balletic Rachael Warren, who, whether one spirit or three, represents female selfhood sacrificing part of its essence for human love and domesticity. But the play is less about its shape shifters than about the only child on the archipelago, Midge, who must reconcile her strange, instinctual gifts and agitated grief with an embrace of life and community. That doesn't mean that the cryptic plotting and triple-casting aren't confusing. Nonetheless, Trinity rises to the play's lyrical, otherworldly occasion. | Trinity Repertory Company, 201 Washington St, Providence, Rhode Island | 401.351.4242 | Through May 31 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues-Sat | 2 + 7:30 pm Sun | $20-$60