Mini Reviews

* FROZEN

(At Studio Theatre through Sunday)

Nancy Robinette, Andrew Long and MaryBeth Wise are a superb triumvirate in Bryony Lavery's crisply devastating play about the intertwining calamities that befall a criminologist, a serial killer and the mother of a murdered child. The crux of the play is the kidnapping and killing of Nancy's daughter, a girl we never meet. From this hub the narrative spokes radiate, conveyed through interwoven monologues and a chain of encounters. The production, directed by David Muse, is an exhibition of exquisitely wrought acting. Andrew Long, MaryBeth Wise and Kimberly Schraf star in Bryony Lavery's crisply devastating play about the intertwining calamities that befall a criminologist, a serial killer and the mother of a murdered child. The crux of the play is the kidnapping and killing of Nancy's daughter, a girl we never meet. From this hub the narrative spokes radiate, conveyed through interwoven monologues and a chain of encounters. (The role of Nancy, originally played by Nancy Robinette, has been taken over by Kimberly Schraf.) Wise's Agnetha interviews the incarcerated Ralph (Long), then meets with Nancy (Schraf), who ultimately instigates Ralph's prison catharsis. The production, directed by David Muse, is an exhibition of exquisitely wrought acting.

-- P.M.

GAUCHOS

(By Teatro de la Luna at the Gunston Arts Center through Saturday)

Illumination is often a good thing in a play, and in Carlos Pais's quirky Argentine work, it's the essential thing. Patricia (Anabel Marcano), a young freelance writer, has just moved into a shabby apartment with no electricity. Word is that there's a guy who lives under the bridge who can wire up anyone, anywhere. But the guy who enters isn't the guy. Instead of that guy, she encounters an older man, Poyo Mojado ("Wet Chicken"), whose funny stories are delivered deadpan by actor-director Mario Marcel. Marcano's character remains shapeless until near the end of the play, when Patricia blows up about the world's injustice and confides about the bleak book she's writing. That is when Pais most directly invokes the desaparecidos, the thousands killed or "disappeared" in Argentina in the 1970s. Another playwright might have chosen to exhume that history in a second full act. Everything is not illuminated, but at least the switching on of a single bulb signifies a way to move on.

-- N.P.

MAME

(At the Kennedy Center through July 2)

Christine Baranski creates an earnest wake as the title character in director Eric Schaeffer's genial production. However, her work isn't sufficiently take-charge; it exposes us to the gifts of a skilled actress rather than a star. Given some of the musical's constraints, Schaeffer and his team do a more than respectable job of maximizing the show's assets. The choreography by Warren Carlyle has real verve, and the cast is Broadway-caliber, including Harrison Chad as young Patrick, the nephew dropped into Mame's privileged life. Despite all the progressive ideas in which she schools him, she watches in horror as he grows up enamored of bigoted white-bread Americana. The deck is stacked so heavily in Mame's favor that the only possible role the show allots us is as her personal cheering section. If we're going to root for Baranski on her own terms, then she's got to meet ours: Please, Ms. Baranski: Relax and be a star.

-- P.M.

* THE MONUMENT

(By Theater Alliance at H Street Playhouse through Sunday)

In Colleen Wagner's stark 1995 drama, Stetko (Alexander Strain) is a captured soldier in some war-ravaged Eastern European state, and Jennifer Mendenhall's Mejra is his peasant-jailer who forces him into slave labor and pummels him with planks and shovels. Stetko has confessed to the rapes and murders of 23 women, acts he claims to have committed only because it was expected of men in the ranks. When Mejra finally coaxes out of him the information she's after, she must struggle with her own moral code. Mendenhall is fiercely watchable as a marginalized woman suddenly dealt an upper hand, and Strain imbues Stetko with all the repulsive cowardliness the role demands. Tautly directed by John Vreeke, this is a powerfully staged meditation on war crimes and those who seek to avenge them.

-- P.M.

A MURDER, A MYSTERY AND A MARRIAGE

(At Round House Theatre through June 25)

This adaptation of a Mark Twain story gets an original bluegrass score, with dialogue and lyrics by director Aaron Posner and music by James Sugg. Set in a hicker-than-hick Missouri town called Deer Lick, Hugh (Ben Dibble) is in love with Mary (Erin Weaver), the daughter of poor hog farmer John (Anthony Lawton). However, after John's rich brother David (Thomas Adrian Simpson) stipulates that Mary can get his money upon his death only if she does not wed Hugh, Mary's father forbids their marrying. Soon, David turns up with a knife in his back and Hugh stands accused, even though the shady, French-accented ferriner (Scott Greer) is acting awful guilty-like. Country-bumpkin humor is a hard sell, and the charms of "A Murder" seem as synthetic as the laugh track on "The Beverly Hillbillies."

-- P.M.