Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, 329-0071, Thurs-Sat at 8, through March 4. $8.The 1920s often prove a challenge for fringe productions, which have trouble miming the vibrant opulence and distinct cadences of the time without getting caught up in the pose of it all. Zelda & Scott: Nine Short Plays about the Fitzgeralds, a new work from Nostalgic Company about the iconic Great Gatsby author and his troubled wife, has the same difficulties, but director Jamie Hook and a hardworking cast eventually achieve a cumulative, elegiac understanding of that doomed and beautiful generation.

The production, an emotional adaptation of the couple's correspondence and writings by Deborah Girdwood, shows the pair in a series of short sketches, constantly stepping up to two microphones to vent sullenly like a couple of indulgent, talented coffeehouse poets. Hook makes this conceit work by capturing both the pain and the fleeting pose behind the Fitzgeralds' romantic tragedies. Michael Chick as Scott is so wired and nervy that he often gets ahead of himself, and Megan Murphy's gloomy Zelda can be monotonously Long Day's Journey into Night, yet both performers work with an intelligent presence of mind that becomes increasingly compelling as the scenes unfold. Murphy, in particular, creates an oddly sympathetic character from Zelda's feathery distraction, highlighting the morose vulnerability that kept her struggling just a beat behind her famous husband.

Energy zings all over the stage with a reckless gusto that occasionally plays without focus. If the party scenes, featuring visits with Ernest Hemingway (Erik Maahs) and Gerald and Sara Murphy (Charles Smith and Heidi Darchuk), tend to announce themselves a little too earnestly, Hook has also made sure they have some of the excitement of that young time. Soon, the evening's quirky touches--Zelda's Fellini-esque little dances or the flickering images that appear over an upstage beach umbrella--begin to grow on you, and even what doesn't work in execution sails past on the evanescence of the Fitzgeralds' plaintive words and Girdwood's empathetic handling of them. By the time its final short play is crooning to a touching close, Zelda & Scott has become something very delicate and sad. The production has a scrappy fragility that, much like its titular subjects, makes it difficult to dislike. STEVE WIECKING

Shut Up and Love Me

On the Boards, 100 W Roy St, 217-9888,

Fri-Sat at 8 & 10:30, through March 4. $20.Notorious performance artist Karen Finley's reputation is such that anyone hearing her name is likely to assume that her show is an evening of nudity and vitriol. They'd be right. Not long after her entrance in Shut Up and Love Me, she's playing with her nipples and gyrating in the faces of audience members, and soon after that she's vindictively detailing her sex life. What doesn't seem to have reached the public, however, and what the uninitiated may find to his or her surprise, is that Karen Finley is, well, so likable and flat-out funny.

Nothing is exceptionally revelatory where Finley is concerned, and thankfully, neither is anything sacred. Shut Up has her telling hysterically discomfiting tales of desperate women asking paraplegic veterans for a good "stump," or begging their fathers to throw caution to the wind and screw them in the office. She does a lot of the aforementioned gyrating, pulling exaggeratedly at her breasts while baring her teeth, and hissing in an insane parody of conventional sexuality. She speaks of entertaining herself at a gallery opening by tormenting bad artists with hyperbolic compliments: "I have never seen a painting of ballerina slippers so phallic-ly delicious that my feet get excited just looking at it!" She lashes out at ex-lovers, yet berates herself in a way that will speak to anyone who has ever survived a nasty affair.

Does Finley indulge herself? Of course she does. She's prone to mugging, and I suppose some people will be turned off by the affected delivery that has her sounding like a profane, petulant brat; or the overstated bravado with which she slams through a lot of her dialogue, script in hand. They'll miss out, though, on the sheer fun of her volatile self-deprecation ("A desperation just short of panic, so I can relax into the sensation of sheer abandonment."). To watch Finley climactically, and winkingly, cavort naked on a mat covered in thick honey is to subvert any preconceptions you have about the idea of true abandon, and more, to appreciate the still sadly rare sight of an empowered woman letting it all hang out. STEVE WIECKING

Fairy Tales of New York

Union Garage, 1418 10th Ave, between Pike and Union, 720-1942,

Thurs-Sat at 8, through March 4. $11Theatre Under the Influence's production of J. P. Donleavy's Fairy Tales of New York sounds like a fringe theater gimme: a respected writer known for searing language and larger-than-life characters; a little-known play version of one of his more interesting novels; and an experienced local director for whom the show is a professed labor of love. But staging the American-born Irish writer's work risks playing to its broader, coarser strengths--lurid characters and forceful dialogue--at the expense of its deeper and more significant insights.

Some of that risk is mitigated through staging: Donleavy's more formally interesting applications of language are preserved through direct readings, and good ensemble acting takes care of the rest. Donleavy's lead, Cornelius Christian, could be played as a smug anti-hero fighting the rudenesses of modern society, but actor Brandon Whitehead's Christian is restrained, remaining an intriguing cipher rather than a full-on boor. This makes Fairy Tales less about Christian's making a place for himself in post-World War II New York, and more about how that city accommodates a difficult and sometimes self-delusional soul.

As a result, the focus falls on the supporting players, all of whom do good work in multiple roles. Jen Taylor and Andy McCone are effective in both their broad and more subtle portrayals, while Charles Leggett nails the crucial role of funeral home director Norman Vine: willfully clueless, but genuine and humane.

But what makes Fairy Tales of New York worth seeing is director Craig Bradshaw's approach to pacing. The play's best scenes use the expectations of dramatic momentum to underscore the isolation and confusion of its characters. The agony of Taylor's Charlotte Graves in the final vignette, as the accouterments of a fancy dinner with Cornelius Christian are taken from her, subverts Christian's eventual fanciful return. The two characters are bound far more effectively by their loneliness than by the grand gesture of Christian that closes the show. Bradshaw and his cast explore nuances in Donleavy's work a less able company would have ignored. TOM SPURGEON