Mini Reviews

-- Nelson Pressley

Friday at 8 and Saturday at 2:30 and 9. 2700 S. Lang St., Arlington. 703-548-3092 orhttp://www.americancentury.org.

HOW THE GARCIA GIRLS LOST THEIR ACCENTS

At Round House Theatre through Oct. 12

The most becoming features of Blake Robison's eye-pleasing production are the portraits of the four Garcia sisters, embodied with charm and brio by Maggie Bofill, Sheila Tapia, Gabriela Fernandez-Coffey and Veronica del Cerro. In modeling her play closely on the literary structure and style of Julia Alvarezas incisively layered novel, playwright Karen Zacarias manages to navigate much smoother channels when evoking more routine sorts of domestic turmoil -- when she is painting for us the interlocking alliances of the sisters, for example, or the inevitable cultural clashes with Papi (Emilio Delgado) and Mami (Marian Licha). The play succeeds most vividly as a bittersweet, coming-of-age comedy, one not afraid to reflect on various degrees of women's grown-up disillusionments. Even so, this version of the story seems to be waiting in its own sort of limbo, for a subtler and more cohesive next draft.

-- P.M.

Friday at 8, Saturday at 3 and 8, Sunday at 3, Wednesday at 7:30, Thursday at 8. 4545 East West Hwy., Bethesda. 240-644-1100.

RESURRECTION

At Arena Stage through Sunday

Daniel Beaty's perky new poetry slam of a play about the hardness and softness of life for African American men evinces lyrical power, but the taste it leaves on this occasion tends to be a bit saccharine. Beaty splits his inspirational voice six ways, parceling it out to actors playing six male characters across a generational spectrum, their ages running in 10-year increments from 10 to 60. Each character is assigned a central problem: Dre has infected his pregnant girlfriend with HIV. Isaac (Alvin Keith), a 40-year-old Harvard MBA, can't bring himself to confide a key facet of his private life to his 60-year-old minister-father, called simply the Bishop (Jeffery V. Thompson), who himself suffers from an eating disorder. Beaty compels us to accept these men as thoughtful and complex, though his insistence on putting them on symbolically ornate pedestals prevents them from moving us as deeply as they might.

-- P.M.

Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8 and Sunday at 7:30. 1800 S. Bell St., Crystal City. 202-488-3300.

* THE ROAD TO MECCA

At Studio Theatre through Oct. 19

Based heavily on the life of South African artist Helen Martins, Joy Zinoman's riveting revival of Athol Fugard's 1988 drama examines the price one pays for one's art, one's independence, one's values. The Afrikaner citizenry of dusty Nieu Bethesda in the autumn of 1974 is not at all happy that Helen (Tana Hicken) has made her property a haven for "idolatry." Helen's sole ally is an outsider, Elsa (Holly Twyford), a younger woman and English teacher who on this day has driven 800 miles from Cape Town to be with her distressed friend. The town, in the person of a local pastor, Marius (Martin Rayner), is determined to rid itself of Helen and assuage its own guilt over wanting to get rid of her by persuading Helen to give up her house and move into a church-run old-age home. Hicken retreating at times into Helen's shell of insecurity, and advancing at others to embrace the needy Elsa is the urgent heart of the play, ebulliently completing Fugard's penetrating human triangle.

-- P.M.

Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, Sunday at 2 and 7, Tuesday at 8, Wednesday at 8, Thursday at 8. 1501 14th St. NW. 202-332-3300.

ROMEO AND JULIET

At Sidney Harman Hall, Shakespeare Theatre through Oct. 18

Does a muskier version of Shakespeare smell as sweet? Er, sorta kinda. The fresh-faced actors playing Romeo (Finn Wittrock) and Juliet (James Davis) in this all-male cast convincingly convey the cau tion-to-the-wind impetuosity of young love. But not the raging fires. The romance with which Wittrock and Davis imbue the story is of a demure variety their kisses are little more than pecks that never allows you to go along fully with the idea they would jump into the grave for each other. The crucial fate-sealing plot twist strikes one as a minor cause for regret, not major source of heartbreak. The goal seems to be to cloak the all-male artifice in as much credibility as possible. The actors play along admirably. Although you'd love to see every aspect of the play so vividly illuminated, director David Muse's gender-restricted gambit is an estimable reminder of how many ro utes can be traveled with Shakespeare and how many more this company needs to explore.

-- P.M.

Friday at 8, Saturday at 2 and 8, Sunday at 2 and 7:30, Wednesday at 12 and 7:30, Thursday at 8. 450 Seventh St. NW. 202-547-1122.

THIS PERFECT WORLD

At Theatre on the Run through Oct. 12

T he lone character in Chris Stezin's production is a bit of a basket case, and he seems to know it. Remembering through the dark waters of perception is how Alan, the shell-shocked subject of this hour-long monologue, describes his mission. Coupled with a mean streak of post-9/11 xenophobia, this character study is a mashup of psychological puzzles and outright lies that you are not terribly compelled to solve. Facts and fictions eventually get sorted out, but it's hard to connect Alan to anything larger than the unhappy and sometimes ugly patterns in his own head. Actor Jason Lott's storytelling has understated drive, and he is nicely attuned to the bits of comic relief; it's not a humorless play. But the drama is a little too gnomic for its own good. "Living is a straight line," Alan says in one of his many unlikely writerly pronouncements, "but remembering is a kaleidoscope." The play is indeed a restlessly turning kaleidoscope, but at least the performance is a nif ty straight line.

-- N.P.

Friday and Saturday at 8, Sunday at 3, Thursday at 8. 3700 S. Four Mile Run Dr., Arlington. 703-243-6366.