THE CARETAKER | Nora Theatre Company opens its 2009–2010 season with Harold Pinter’s 1960 enigma, in which Aston, who’s had electroshock treatment, brings the homeless and difficult Davies back to his ramshackle apartment and the two fence with each other, Aston trying to please Davies while the audience wonders why. It gets still more complicated when Aston’s younger brother, Mick, enters the picture. Director Daniel Gidron does this play by the book, as perhaps one must, and the production achieves its goal of respectfully, even poignantly presenting a once-groundbreaking work. Still, it’s not perfect. Joe Lanza captures the mercurial Mick’s silkiness but not his menace, and Michael Balcanoff conveys hobo Davies’s puling buoyancy but not his full wiliness and seediness. Even John Kuntz, his shoulders stiff, his eyes darting, sometimes appears to be acting as Aston. | Central Square Theater, 450 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 866.811.4111 | Through November 1 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri-Sat | 2 pm Sun | $35; $25 seniors; $20 students
CRAVINGS: SONGS OF HUNGER & SATISFACTION | “Boston’s favorite cabaret artist Belle Linda Halpern” — well, she is a favorite — “takes a funny, intriguing, and profound Jewish-American look at our constant cravings: food, sex, acceptance, fame, and true nourishment.” And while she’s at it, she’ll be preparing the traditional Passover dish charoset. Sabina Hamilton directs; Ron Roy is the accompanist. | Central Square Theater, 450 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 866.811.4111 | Through October 25 | Curtain 7:30 pm Thurs | 8 pm Fri-Sat | 2 pm Sun | $35; $25 seniors; $20 students
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 January 2 | 8 pm Thurs [through October 30] | 8 pm Fri | 8 + 10:30 pm Sat | $25-$49
GIRLS NIGHT: THE MUSICAL | This girls’ night out — which got its start in Great Britain in 2003 and spread to the US in 2007 — “follows five friends in their 30s and 40s as they relive their past, celebrate their present, and look to the future on a wild and hilarious night out at a karaoke bar,” in the process singing “It’s Raining Men,” “I Will Survive,” Lady Marmalade,” “We Are Family,” “Man I Feel like a Woman,” and “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” | Club Café, 209 Columbus Ave, Boston | 877.386.6968 | Through November 22 | Curtain 7:30 pm Tues-Fri | 4 + 7:30 pm Sat | 3 pm Sun | $55
