WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? | If anyone can stand up to Edward Albee's braying, booze-soaked, ball-busting sack of sex and pathos, Martha, it's Shakespeare & Company founding artistic director Tina Packer. So can Nigel Gore, as George, stand up to Packer in this revival of the 1962 New York Critics' Circle Award winner too potty-mouthed to win a Pulitzer? Diego Arciniegas directs this Publick Theatre production. | Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | October 1-24 | Curtain 7:30 pm Wed-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $33-$37.50
NOW PLAYING
CABARET | Willkommen! Trinity Repertory Company opens its 46th season with the Kander & Ebb musical based on Christopher Isherwood's Berlin stories and made famous by Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey. They won't be coming to the Cabaret in Providence but Trinity is hoping that at least one of your tomorrows will belong to Rachael Warren as Sally Bowles, Mauro Hartman as Cliff Bradshaw, Joe Wilson Jr. as the MC, Phyllis Kay as Fräulein Schneider, and Stephen Berenson as Herr Schultz. Trinity artistic director Curt Columbus is at the helm. | Trinity Repertory Company, 201 Washington St, Providence, Rhode Island | 401.351.4242 | Through October 11 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues | 2 pm [September 30] + 7:30 pm Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs-Fri | 2 pm [October 3] + 7:30 pm Sat | 2 + 7:30 pm Sun | $20-$65; $10 12th-row bench
THE DONKEY SHOW | C-dust pinch-hits for fairy dust in The Donkey Show, Diane Paulus & Randy Weiner's disco-set riff on A Midsummer Night's Dream, an hour-long work set in the Studio 54?inspired environs of Club Oberon (formerly Zero Arrow Theatre) and framed by episodes of Saturday Night Fever in which you may or may not choose to star. The dramatis personae include Dr. Wheelgood, a gold-lamé-clad Puck on roller skates; club owner Mr. Oberon, who's out to humiliate his haughty diva girlfriend, Tytania; desperately yearning or cockily dismissive lovers Helen, Dimitri, Mia, and Sander; and a twin couple of ruffle-shirted, Afro-coiffed dudes both named Vinnie. Ingeniously double-cast, sexily supple, and screeching into headsets, they join the paying crowd (a small minority of whom occupy tables in a cabaret area that also sees action) for an immersive night of hedonism and hustle driven by the pounding beat and melodramatic passions of disco hits from the 1970s. | Oberon, Mass Ave + Arrow St, Cambridge | 617.547.8300 | Through October 31 | 8 pm Thurs | 8 + 10:30 pm Fri [late show September 25] | 8 + 10:30 pm Sat | $25-$49
FENCES | The Huntington Theatre Company opens its 2009-2010 season with August Wilson's 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner. It's the sixth play in his Pittsburgh Cycle, so it's set in the 1950s. Troy Maxson used to be a Negro Leagues baseball star, but he was too old for the Jackie Robinson era, so now he's a garbage man, and he and co-worker Bono are hanging out as usual on Friday night, and his oldest son, Lyons, is coming around for a loan because it's dad's payday and Lyons is a musician and doesn't have a job. Then there's Rose, Troy's wife of 18 years (except that Troy is thinking more about a woman named Alberta), and Troy's teenage son, Cory, who wants to be a football star but isn't getting much support from his embittered father. Kenny Leon directs. | Boston University Theatre, 264 Huntington Ave, Boston | 617.266.0800 | Through October 11 | Curtain 7:30 Tues [no September 29] | 2 pm [October 7] + 7:30 pm Wed | 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | 2 + 7:30 pm [evening October 4] Sun | $20-$82.50
