David Mamet’s 1976 classic profiles one day in a claustrophobic junk
shop in Chicago and three men who talk, worry, and fight over a
robbery they’re planning for that evening. The performers are
fevered and desperate, particularly Mark Fullerton as a ne’er-do-well,
who flaps and sputters around the stage like a spastic, pissed-off
scarecrow. We already know how it ends—with one of the
triumvirate bleeding, one smashing up the shop, and the third watching
helplessly—but the conclusion is still alarming. (Theater
Schmeater, 1500 Summit Ave, 800-838-3006. 8 pm, $15/$18.)

Brend an Kiley has worked as a child actor in New Orleans, as a member of the junior press corps at the 1988 Republican National Convention, and, for one happy April, as a bootlegger’s assistant in Nicaragua....