Voices in the Head
Theatre Babylon at the Union Garage, 720-1942. Through April 21.

This production's first act just blew me away. Theatre Babylon founder DJ Hamilton, a self-described Samuel Beckett fanatic, has fashioned a script from the writer's collection of early short fictions, Stories and Texts for Nothing. Carefully arranged, the script is both dense with words and terribly clear; it sneaks up on you with Beckett's trademark horror and hilarity, pointing to the fact that even in his early fiction, the author already knew the themes he articulated so uniquely and beautifully at the height of his playwriting career in Waiting for Godot and Endgame. Hamilton and the cast of nine strong actors are in absolute complicity with Beckett: a boon for fans and initiates, too.

The staging here is clear and clean. The disembodied soul of a writer (Josh List) wills himself to become a man (Mike Meyer) who traverses a city, lost and confused. In one brief, striking scene, the homeless man enters a pub where locals dance and joke fatuously; the actors and stage elements conspire beautifully to swirl before the audience, suggesting that our lives are a terrible dream we must have invented and can barely articulate. As List pronounces elegiacally, "But with what words shall I name my unnamable words?!" the burden of describing life ain't nice. Meyer fills in his character with a resonant, intelligent, inquisitive voice that makes the homeless man all the more poignant.

The evening's second act, a comic play based on Beckett's short story "Love and Lethe," is not as successful. While Beckett often calls attention to the fact that plays are not real life, Hamilton follows suit in The Big Day with overly broad strokes as the actors suddenly refuse to play, the lights go up, and the tech manager runs down to persuade them to continue. This was too obvious for me, though the short play has its strong moments of visual humor and the romantic leads (Shawn Yates, James Weidman) hit all the right comic notes. STACEY LEVINE

The Red Room
Richard Hugo House, 325-0683. Through April 29.

What is it about the American South that encourages writers to employ broad stereotypes as if they were inscrutable icons of the way things used to be? The dysfunctional sisters in S. P. Miskowski's '60s period piece The Red Room seem less like fully realized individuals than call sheet descriptions from Southern Gothic central casting. Prodigal man-eater Alma slinks back to the house she grew up in to butt heads with dour, drudgelike Martha. In between moments spent battling one another, they take turns indulging, mistreating, and substitute-parenting Louise, a semi-sexualized simpleton. Their story, told in endless blackouts, unfolds with the dull certainty of a called-move square dance. By play's close, all three sisters participate in at least one "dark secret" of the easily trademarked scary hillbilly variety, which flower throughout the evening with grim, checklist inevitability.

Still, there's something to be said for an unflinching eye and creative execution, and the play as performed offers plenty of both. Miskowski writes lean, elegant dialogue, and her characters allow each actress plenty of room with which to negotiate the symphony of unspooled fears and interdependency at play's heart. As Martha, Susan Riddiford gives a wonderfully complex physical performance, everything heavy and awkward, snapping into miniature explosions of power and assured movement. The show is also well-staged: Director and cast make imaginative use of the minimalist set design, while the carefully studied interaction between actors gives the performance its energy. A moment of intimate abuse at the play's three-quarter point is as effectively conceived for the stage as any in memory, and should stay with audiences for years to come. Seeing that highlight and others, one wonders how much more might have stayed to haunt us had the characters themselves been as uniquely realized as their sins. TOM SPURGEON

Hamlet
The Mercer Arena, 443-2222 (Seattle Repertory Theatre's box office). Through April 19.

Perhaps the most famous theater director alive, Peter Brook has created an extremely canny edited version of Shakespeare's Hamlet, emphasizing an almost cinematically fluid storyline and an overall clarity of language. (A plot summary for the Hamlet-challenged: The ghost of a king tells his son Hamlet that he was murdered by his brother. Hamlet, not trusting the supernatural and struggling with his conscience, delays the revenge the ghost demands; while seeking proof, the prince causes the death of almost everyone around him.) Similarly, Brook's staging avoids any realistic depiction of place, which allows scenes to flow into each other and demands that the audience use its imagination, which is always a good idea. Unfortunately, Brook seems to have whittled the text down to make room for pauses. Contemplative pauses; melancholy pauses; pauses flush with unspoken rage and desire. Many, many pauses. Hamlet even dies in slow motion. This ponderous pace, curiously, helped the humor but undercut any moments of grief, as the rhythm of scenes couldn't be stretched any further.

As Hamlet, Adrian Lester is charming, subtle, physically nimble, and genuinely funny. Unfortunately, though the rest of the cast members seem capable, the interpretations of their characters are completely stock; the editing allows them little room to show much in the way of humanity. It's a more sophisticated version of the trick Kenneth Branagh pulled in his recent film of the play, in which he made sure that everyone but himself had unflattering hair. It stacks the deck in Hamlet's favor; we immediately think he's the hippest guy at a party of dullards. As a result, all of his soliloquies--speeches which, dramatically speaking, serve to woo the audience to Hamlet's point of view--lack any purpose beyond exposition or the recitation of philosophical points, neither of which make for compelling theater. As a result, the production is lucid, intelligent, and dull. BRET FETZER