Mini Reviews

If you hunger for Harold Pinter's polemics, you can subject yourself to this tedious showcase of short works in which Pinter broods on how the powerful abuse the powerless. Robert McNamara has grouped three one-acts written in response to international conflicts. "One for the Road" is the dramatist's 1984 outcry against actions in Nicaragua; "Mountain Language," his 1988 protest against Turkey's treatment of the Kurds; and "The New World Order," (1991) a grim meditation on the Persian Gulf War. The scenarios are nightmarishly vivid, but they seem tethered to a peculiarly simplistic view of evil. McNamara's production trots out some harrowing images, and the show has an asset in David Bryan Jackson, who brings a sinister charisma to bad-guy roles in all three pieces. This 70-minute production will appeal to Pinter specialists, who will be best equipped to appreciate the echoes and variations among the three dystopias.

-- Celia Wren

Continuing

* ASSASSINS

(At Signature Theatre through July 30)

Director Joe Calarco has found an absorbingly original way to bring out the harsh, satirical colors in this controversial 1991 Sondheim musical. Rather than place the historical characters -- nine killers and would-be killers of U.S. presidents -- in some surreal environment, as other productions have done, he's made a home for them in the kind of surroundings every consumer of entertainment has to be familiar with. The approach is boldly, stylishly theatrical, a match for the nerviness of the show itself. Calarco's achievement is allowing us to develop an intimate bond -- and perhaps even better understand our shared cultural conditioning -- with the lunatics, misfits and malcontents who shoot their way into American political history.

-- P.M.

* CAROLINE, OR CHANGE

(At Studio Theatre through July 9)

Librettist Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori add affecting hues and textures to the gathering strife in and around a Southern Jewish household in the early phases of the civil rights era. Studio's juicy production, ably staged by director Greg Ganakas, does justice to this tricky material, and the show is thrillingly sung by the 18 actors who've been cast with both a fine eye and a keen ear. Anchoring the evening are sixth-grader Max Talisman, playing 9-year-old Noah Gellman, and Julia Nixon, who is a wonderful, brooding Caroline Thibodeaux, the Gellman family housekeeper. Noah grieves over the death of his mother and fixates on Caroline, despite her contempt for him and his family. Noah gets little support from his distraught, distant father and callously dismisses his stepmother's maternal overtures. Studio has distinguished itself of late with a spate of standout productions, and now the company is hitting more high notes.