TWELVE ANGRY JURORS | Counter-Productions Theatre Company takes on the story that started out as Twelve Angry Men, a TV drama by Reginald Rose that was turned into the 1957 film directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda before being adapted for the stage by Sherman L. Sergel. In this version, it’s a young black man who’s on trial for the murder of his father, and the panel of 12 jurors has been updated to include women, but the premise is the same: 11 jurors dead certain the defendant is guilty and one holdout. Brian McCarthy has the Henry Fonda role as Juror #8; Daniel Grund directs. | Piano Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont St, Boston | 866.811.4111 | Through October 25 | Curtain 8 pm Thurs-Sat | 2 pm Sun | $15 advance; $18 doors
2.5 MINUTE RIDE | Downstage @ New Rep brings us Lisa Kron’s New York Times–applauded (“remarkable . . . emotional vibrations that won’t stop”) one-woman show, which the American Repertory Theater presented at Suffolk University back in 1998. Kron kibitzes between Cedar Point (in Sandusky, Ohio) and Auschwitz, to which she traveled with her father, in part so that he could see the place where his parents perished. The roller-coaster — in addition to starring in some funny family anecdotes — serves as a symbol for a life in which escapist distress has long stood in for the real thing. For this incarnation, Adrianne Krstansky fills in as Lisa. | Arsenal Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St, Watertown | 617.923.8487 | Through October 24 | Curtain 8 pm Wed-Thurs | 8:30 pm Fri | 4 + 8:30 pm Sat | 3 + 8 pm Sun | $25; seniors $20; students $12.50
WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? | Edward Albee didn’t approve the staging in this Publick Theatre production, and he might not approve of the characterization, since director Diego Arciniegas and actors Tina Packer and Nigel Gore have conspired to make professorial “bog” George more masculine than is customary and braying Martha, though brassy as ever, more vulnerable. But except for that shift in the power struggle between Albee’s warring if co-dependent couple, the production is aptly respectful of the material and its early-1960s academic setting. Packer’s Martha is disoriented or blubbery from time to time, but she’s also both playful and primal. Gore is a relaxed yet forceful George, nailing both his acerb and his bitterly reflective arias. Angie Jepson’s Honey is hilariously insolent when emboldened by brandy, yet piquantly pained when her secrets are betrayed. And square-shouldered, thick-haired Kevin Kaine is a near-perfect Nick: a clean-cut, clean-fighting “light heavyweight” up against a couple of brainier Mike Tysons. | Boston Center for the Arts Plaza Theatre, 539 Tremont St, Boston | 617.933.8600 | Through October 24 | Curtain 7:30 pm Wed-Thurs | 8 pm Fri | 2 + 8 pm Sat | 2 pm Sun | $33-$37.50
