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-- P.M.
Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, Sunday at 2 and 7, Tuesday at 7:30, Wednesday at 7:30, Thursday at 8. 4200 Campbell Ave., Arlington. 703-820-9771 or 202-397-7328.
* ROMEO AND JULIET
At the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop through Saturday
The all-female production has a merry, let's-put-on-a-show feel about it. Taffety Punk, an outfit run by actors Marcus Kyd and Lise Bruneau -- the latter directs the production -- goes after the male-dominated version across town with a Tina Fey kind of cheek. Bruneau knows how to wring feeling from the poetry, so there is a tender fervor to the attraction this Romeo (Rahaleh Nassri) exhibits for his Juliet (Kelsey Rae Grouge). The actresses of Bruneau's modern-dress treatment effect masculine mannerisms without laying on the swagger (Abby Wood's Tybalt is the exception). The balcony scene, performed on and around the set's sole fixture, rudimentary monkey bars, sweetly illuminates the bloom on Romeo and Juliet's fast-budding love. Julia Brandeberry's Paris, Erin Sloan's Lady Capulet and Elizabeth Webster's Escalus create especially sturdy portraits. And Gilbert brings a welcome air of bravura to Romeo's hyper-dramatic friend.
-- P.M.
Friday at 7:30 and Saturday at 3 and 7:30. 545 Seventh St. SE. 202-547-6839.
Continuing
* 1984
At Atlas Performing Arts Center through Sunday
In playwright Christopher Gallu's efficient conversion of George Orwell's cautionary novel, you're meant to feel the full, oppressive weight of a regime obsessed with eradicating dissent and recasting history in its own image. The first act chronicles dystopian rebel Winston Smith's witheringly dull life as a drone in a government records office, where the drudgery involves creating a historical reality based on the whims of the ruling party. Big Brother voiced in the ominous basso of James Konicek is apparently still watching. Only now in HD. As Winston falls in love with the clandestine revolutionary Julia (Laura C. Harris), the scenes give way to more naturalistic ones. In the more dramatic second act, Winston is in custody and faced with the horrific choice of being tortured further or betraying the person he cares about most. Still, the climactic moment at which Party hack O'Brien (Ian LeValley) taunts Fortier's Winston with exposure to his most nightmarish terror brings this production to just the right paranoid temperature.
