Three Viewings theater simple at Richard Hugo House
Through March 5.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse
Through Feb 27.

Midway through The Chosen, a fierce intellectual debate erupts over a passage in the Talmud. Gabriel Baron's eyes flash, his stance contracts, and the audience watches--our skepticism beaten back into credulity by his massive performance--as Baron's character Danny Saunders darts through the vast catalog of his photographic memory. Connor J. Toms, as Danny's friend Reuven, parries the arguments, at first gingerly, and then with all the force his gangly frame can muster. And Eddie Levi Lee, playing a father of flat-out mythical stature and presence, urges the boys onward into a thrilling froth of sublimation.

The compact scene is amazing because it converts scholarly passion into a theatrical spectacle that rivals even the excitement of an earlier scene about a baseball game. The conversion is crucial to the success of the entire play because these religious tutorials are the only moments when Danny's father consents to speak to him. The rest of the time, the two sit together in silence. (It's little wonder Danny is eventually driven to study Freud.)

The 1999 adaptation of Chaim Potok's classic young-adult novel pares the devastating story of a boy's estrangement from his father down to an elemental simplicity. This production at the Rep, under the direction of co-adapter Aaron Posner, tightens the story even further, a neat trick that hinges on Aaron Serotsky's peculiarly dissolved, ego-less performance in the role of the narrator. The Chosen is packed with smart choices: the Carey Wong set that suggests the vertical thrust of urban living, the effective sound design by Darron L. West, Posner's whip-crack pacing. But Gabriel Baron's performance fuels the pathos and incredible tenderness of the entire show. He is a revelation.

* * * It's just sad when the best thing about a production is the color chartreuse. From the matte wall hangings to the shimmering drapery, each yellowish-green object in Three Viewings' funeral-parlor setting mirrors the sickly relief you feel after this trio of inept monologues has finally ended. It's the feeling of an infant who, after being subjected to one too many spoonfuls of mashed peas, registers his protest in a single, wet belch.

The first monologue is performed by Mark Fullerton, and it concerns a funeral-home director who has a crush on an ambulance-chasing real estate agent. Instead of asking the lady out, he compulsively chants "I love you" while staring at her from halfway across the room. (Oh, the hilarity.) Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher shows his cards early on--in every monologue, there's a spate of facile allusions, at least two annoying rhetorical questions, and an ultra-convenient O. Henry twist that metes out justice in the end. Rachel Katz Carey's direction allows the precious few crumbs of actual comedy in the writing to slip through the cracks, and the insipid speech can't be over soon enough.

And then you're rewarded for your endurance with another unbearable half-hour. Macteague (Llysa Holland) is a dame who rips jewelry off corpses--the kind of arch, whiskey-voiced broad who exists only on stage and in Mexican soap operas. Holland pours gallons of enthusiasm into lines like "They're all acting as if--well, they're acting as if someone has died," but the material is just too heavy-handed. In the last monologue, Shellie Shulkin is charming as a widow up to her ears in her late husband's shady dealings, but by this point in the show, the audience has already curled up in their seats and died.

* * * But Shakespearian heroines vomiting onto audience members--now that's comedy. Evan Whitfield plays the cross-dressing, barf-prone Adam in Seattle Public Theater's gangly but enjoyable production of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). Whitfield's manic excess (and the fact that, like, Shakespeare's heroines used to be played by guys) makes him the most interesting of the three actors in the show. John Hazelwood's too bland and Ethan Savaglio too insular for their respective roles; and none of the cast is up to the virtuosic physicality that playing Hamlet backward--literally, in reverse--requires. But Complete Works is a boisterous, generous--you might even say pandering--sort of show, and the packed house last Saturday adored it.