Theater: New Shows

Bill Heck and Maggie Lacey in "The Orphan's Home Cycle." (Credit: T. Charles Erickson )

The first week of November, 2009, will be remembered by theater fans as the week that a Neil Simon play "bombed". It's ludicrous, really: a good show gets positive reviews and glowing word-of-mouth, but because the economy stinks, the show's producers call it a fiasco. Well, if you missed "Brighton Beach Memoirs"—and you probably did, and you missed out—you should check out "The Orphan's Home Cycle" instead. This three-play cycle at the Signature has a similar sense of hard-edged nostalgia, and it's our Pick of the Week.

The Age of Iron
Where: Classic Stage Company
First night: Wednesday, Nov. 4
Opening night: Sunday, Nov. 22
Closing night: Sunday, Dec. 13
URL: ClassicStage.org
For heavy-metal fans of Shakespearean theater, CSC mashes up the bard's classic "Troilus and Cressida" with his minor rival's "Iron Age" for a blank verse look at the Seige of Troy. Cynical and mordant (Helen of Troy is basically a slut), this revision of classic myth is only $10 thru Nov. 22!

Dreamgirls
Where: The Apollo Theater
First night: Saturday, Nov. 7
Opening night: Sunday, Nov. 22
Closing night: Sunday, Dec. 6
URL: DreamgirlsOnstage.com
This rags-to-riches tale of a Supremes-like girl group will be going on tour following its debut at the Apollo. It's a revival of the classic 1981 musical, meant to capitalize on the screen version from a few years back. So why not rent that? New choreography by Shane Spencer, of "So You Think You Can Dance".

Loaded
Where: Theater Row
First night: Saturday, Nov. 7
Opening night: Sunday, Nov. 15
Closing night: Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010
URL: LoadedThePlay.com
The differences in life experience may be too wide for a 47-year-old intellectual and a sharp-witted 24-year-old bartender to keep their relationship afloat. It's billed as a serious look at sex, which hopefully means it's candid about love and sex, and not just graphically explicit (though it's got that too!).

The Orphan's Home Cycle
Where: Signature Theater
First night: Thursday, Nov. 5
Closing night: Sunday, Mar. 28
URL: SignatureTheatre.org
Signature's MO is to devote an entire season to one playwright. This season, they've selected Horton Foote, a crusty writer who wrote the screenplay for "To Kill A Mockingbird", and has a warm realism that takes honest measure of life's darker moments. "The Orphan's Home Cycle" is actually a trilogy set in a Texas town during the first half of the last century. You can see all three in one weekend day, or catch each show on separate nights.

Quartett
Where: BAM Harvey
First night: Wednesday, Nov. 4
closing night: Saturday, Nov. 14
URL: BAM.org
It's an adaptation of "Dangerous Liaisons", but don't plan on a straight-up mounting of French bosoms (even if Isabelle HuppertHeiner Muller does star). It's filtered through the brutal lens of German experimentalist , and distilled through the style of director Robert Wilson, a titan of abstract performance. That's 105 wonky minutes, no intermission.

Red Sea Fish
Where: 59e59
First night: Tuesday, Nov. 3
Opening night: Sunday, Nov. 8
Closing night: Sunday, Nov. 22
URL: 59e59.com
Part of 59e59's essential Brits Off Broadway festival, which lets New Yorkers check out London's small and funky shows (you mean it's not all Stoppard and Shakespeare?). "Red Sea Fish" peeks into the life of a retired criminal who comes back to life when his son brings a girl home.

This
Where: Playwrights Horizons
First night: Friday, Nov. 7
Opening night: Wednesday, Dec. 2
Closing night: Sunday, Dec. 13
URL: PlaywrightsHorizons.org
Playwright Melissa James Gibson made a stupendous debut in 2001 with "[sic]", but her work's been onstage with disappointing infrequency since. Playwrights Horizons offers the opportunity to see what Gibson's been up to, with this "un-romantic" comedy about a forty-something single mother.

Last chance!
Glue Trap
Where: Axis Theater
URL: AxisCompany.org

Good Bobby
Where: 59e59
URL: 59e59.org