England

Wed., Sep 10 2008 at 12:00AM

Some of todays most interesting theater doesnt take place in actual theaters. For some time now, performance artists and others have been exploring how unusual venues, from supermarkets to abandoned warehouses, can make us engage differently with their stories. In his new play England, British actor/playwright Tim Crouch and actress Hannah Ringland will welcome their audience at the Henry for a tour both through the art and through a story. The text is a teasingly fractured narrative about a gift that becomes a transaction: an organ transplant that haunts the lives of both the recipient and the widow of the Third World donor. (Back home in England, the recipients boyfriend is also an art dealer.) Crouch, an up-and-comer whose initial production of England at last years Edinburgh Fringe Festival netted three awards, has garnered praise for his cerebral but oddly affecting pieces, with characters so fluid that voices can drift from one performer to anotherin fact, Crouch and Ringland share Englands same central role, trading lines throughout. Yet theres always a sense of something important not being said, of slippage between characters and places. The reviews for this piece are good, even if the critics' overall tone can be summed up as impressed bafflement. Henry Art Gallery, 4100 15th Ave. N.E., 543-2280, www.henryart.org. $15-$25. 7:30 and 9 p.m. (Also: 7:30 p.m. Mon. and Tues.) JOHN LONGENBAUGH