Some comedy is so pitiful and revealing that we can't laugh at it, but only chuckle grimly. Such is Caryl Churchill's Far Away, a meditation on the road from innocence to experience, comprising three scenes in the life of a young woman. The play is spare with elegant, surprising touches of surrealism, ranging from the childhood eeriness of sleeping at an aunt's house to a first job at an outrageous haberdashery, where artists design hats for death-row inmates on parade.

Churchill transplants the universal hallmarks of youth (curiosity, courtship, growing political investment) into a twisted, parallel universe. Like a tender story by Raymond Carver with freaky flourishes à la Vonnegut, it keeps both feet on the ground while whispering secrets about the deep weirdness of life--a weirdness easily forgotten as we settle into the comfort of adulthood.

The production is deceptively simple, using its small stage and clever scene changes to maximum effect. The cast is excellent and understated, treating Churchill's twists on reality with believable devotion. Sincerity is the saddest comedy. BRENDAN KILEY

I Am an Artist
Consolidated Works
Through Nov 22.

The program notes for Greg Lundgren's I Am an Artist announce that this is a nontraditional theater experience, and when it begins--with an art teacher hectoring his class, seated in the audience, about commerce vs. artistic inspiration--it seems like it might go somewhere unusual. But as one of these students becomes a serial killer who turns her victims into art installations, the play becomes increasingly straightforward. The theme of a murderer making a statement about culture and/or human nature is as old as Leopold and Loeb (a more recent example would be the movie Seven). The production seemed pretty traditional; even when it played a few postmodern tricks, they were pretty familiar devices (like pretending to break the fourth wall to talk to members of the audience, who all turn out to be actors).

The cast (a mix of experienced actors and neophytes, some of them visual artists themselves) plays a variety of quirky characters with uneven success (Tina LaPlant's turn as a neurotic dress designer is dazzling). Though the various debates about art, instinct, truth, etc. are unsurprising, they're also smartly articulated. But the staging is clumsy, the pace slow, and--most significantly--the killer's installations are banal (particularly in contrast with Jason Puccinelli's dioramas in Consolidated Works' adjacent gallery). This is part of ConWorks' Fraud series, so perhaps the hollowness is deliberate--but the play's arguments would simply be more provocative if the murderer's art had some substance. BRET FETZER

Abstract Expression
Mirror Stage Company at Richard Hugo House
Through Nov 23.

Theresa Rebeck's Abstract Expression is more art about art--in this case, about an abstract expressionist named Mac (Glenn Guhr) who, after a cruel review, withdrew from the public eye. When his daughter, Jenny (Retha Tinker), caters a private dinner, a resulting series of chance connections leads to the painter being rediscovered and acclaimed; but his self-destructive nature continues to wreak havoc on everyone around him.

Abstract Expression is more about human relationships than ideas, which seems wise (particularly since, in addition to being about art, money, class, truth, and love, Rebeck tries to squeeze in race as well).

Unfortunately, these relationships never acquire enough substance to fuel a storyline this sprawling. Jenny's semi-erotic attachment to her dad is the axis around which the play's conflicts revolve; the second act depends on an unresolved grief that comes off more like truculence than the stirring of her soul. Despite some compelling scenes and good performances (particularly Cecil Luellen as a gentle friend of Mac's), the cumulative effect of the production is vague. BRET FETZER

Unhinged and Low Flying
Shoogie Shoog at Consolidated Works
Through Nov 22.

For me, the lasting image of this late-night solo performance will certainly be that of writer/performer Mark Boeker's paunchy flesh writhing lustily in his boxer shorts. The uproarious spectacle is as sexy as watching a seal waddle to its mate, and while Boeker clearly knows it, the self-deceiving lout he creates hasn't a clue.

In Unhinged and Low Flying, revived and revised from its premiere at the 2002 Seattle Fringe Festival, Boeker performs six self-contained and damned funny monologues in which people try (and mostly fail) to exert some kind of power over their own lives. As with most of us, their levers of control tend to be petty, like the neat-freak hectoring his slovenly roommate, or a rigid and insulting maitre d' training his waiters to properly attend the silverware. The sexually frustrated Gulf War vet grouses at his high-school reunion that his misfortunes are always someone else's fault.

Anger and bitterness are the wellspring of comedy, and Boeker is masterly with his parade of malcontents. They're broadly drawn, but recognizable as people we know (or are) even as Boeker thunders and coos with only the interludes of guitarist Aaron Loidhamer to relieve his spell. Unhinged and Low Flying is smart, savage, and stinging, and worth staying awake for. GIANNI TRUZZI