Mini Reviews

(By Keegan Theatre's New Island Project at Theatre on the Run through Saturday)

For those who have a passionate interest in Irish rugby history of the 1970s, this might very well be riveting entertainment. For the vast majority of the population that does not share that obsession, however, these people are likely to find the play dull and hard to follow. Written in 1999, Irish playwright John Breen's comic drama chronicles the startling 1978 victory of the scrappy Munster Rugby Team over a rival that had seemed invincible. The production is a soup of fleeting sketches spoken in accents that seem to hail from somewhere east of Limerick and west of Wellington. Breen's play, which is reportedly an audience favorite in Ireland, depicts 62 characters, including players, fans, coaches, a taxi driver, a woman in labor and a dog. Given that no figure stays in view for long, and that the dialogue is littered with culturally rarefied remarks, American viewers might find it hard to keep track.

-- C.W.

CHRISTMAS CAROL 1941

(At Arena Stage through Dec. 30)

The hook for the uneven "Christmas Carol 1941" is the parsimony of a Washington accountant -- here called Elijah Strube -- who in the early days of World War II sees the ripening of black-market possibility in the food shortages to come. Playwright James Magruder, an accomplished translator of the works of Marivaux and Moli¿re, follows the Dickensian formula faithfully, with Strube browbeating Bob Cratchit substitute Henry Schroen and being visited not by ghosts but, more oddly, by avenging statues from around Washington. James Gale's Strube snarls and growls in such unpleasant fashion that you can't work up much enthusiasm for his redemption; Scrooge's catchphrase -- "Bah, humbug!" -- is replaced by Strube's coarser "Bullcrap!" The performance is of a piece with the rest of director Molly Smith's production, which never quite comes together in a satisfying way.

-- P.M.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

(By Synetic Theater at Rosslyn Spectrum through Dec. 23)

Synetic's 75-minute production is executed with the company's trademark reliance on Scotch tape and muscle. The tale, with Irakli Kavsadze's brooding Scrooge at the center, is related clearly and efficiently. What the production lacks is the zing factor -- the compelling body-crafted stage pictures that director Paata Tsikurishvili and his choreographer-wife, Irina, routinely coax out of their young actors. A hardworking cast of eight dons robes and sways and swirls a lot, under a moody canopy of bare light bulbs. You get less a sense, though, of the company's winning style than of the umpteenth reprocessing of the same old story.