Opening Nights: Balagan, the 5th, Seattle Shakes, PNB, and the Schmee

Closer

Balagan Theatre, 1117 E. Pike St., 800-838-3006, www.balagantheatre.org. $12–$20. 8 p.m. Thurs.–Sat., 2 p.m. Sun. Ends April 4.

"Our flesh is ferocious. Our bodies will kill us. Our bones will outlive us." That poetic bon mot lies at the heart of this 1997 British dramedy, which follows two couples through years of amorous entanglements they cannot resist, fully aware they're slicing each other to ribbons with each new embrace. The play (last staged locally by ReAct in 2002) insists that there's something ineffably broken in the way we mate. Love here is essentially an act of naked selfishness.

Lies, affairs, and betrayals overlap as three Brits—Dan, a journalist; a dermatologist named Larry; and an aspiring photographer named Anna—grapple with the deceptive American stripper, Alice, who's dropped into their midst. In Closer, "Don't leave me" is practically a mantra, even though it's clear that none of the combinations in which these four couple is going to be good for any of them. Patrick Marber's writing is dazzlingly funny at times and reveals a razor edge at others, as the characters repeatedly bump into each other in unexpected places to spin the action in a new direction. The show's most powerful scene finds Larry in a London titty bar, throwing money at an undulating Alice as he tries to persuade her to reveal anything genuine about herself. He leaves empty-handed, and ultimately so do the other characters. The lights go down at intermission to one of the most startling lines ever to end a first act: "Now fuck off and die, you fucked-up slag."

Director Lisa Confehr pries the locks on these complicated lives and relationships, but she's unable to get her performers to open completely. There's a kind of steeplechase among the four cast members: As they approach those passages where Marber requires them to leap, several shy away at the last instant. Perhaps it's a lack of rehearsal, but the effect is deadly. At critical junctures, the actors simply look at each other and offer line readings that have no connection to their own characters or the consequences they face.

Production values belie the fact that Balagan is essentially a shoestring operation. But a show like Closer lives or dies by the performances of its cast, and if they're not completely committed, then it's all for naught. KEVIN PHINNEY

Hello, Dolly!

5th Avenue Theatre, 1308 Fifth Ave., 625-1900, www.5thavenue.org. $22–$81. 7:30 p.m. Tues.–Wed., 8 p.m. Thurs.–Fri., 2 & 8 p.m. Sat., 1:30 & 7 p.m. Sun. Ends March 29.

Even non-theatergoers are familiar with this Jerry Herman musical, thanks to the 1969 film adaptation starring Barbra Streisand and, much more recently, Disney's WALL-E. Based on Thornton Wilder's play The Matchmaker, it follows self-proclaimed meddler Dolly Levi to New York, where she's hired to find a wife for crusty "half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. It soon becomes evident, however, that Dolly actually intends on snagging the man for herself.

The 5th Avenue called on big guns Jenifer Lewis and Pat Cashman to play the leading roles, but on opening night, Lewis tripped over several of her lines and Cashman's delivery often came across as stiff and forced. Most bewildering was that Lewis played Dolly as a modern-day R&B diva a la J.Lo or Mariah Carey. Given that Wilder's play takes place at the turn of the 20th century and that Dolly is an officious Jewish woman, Lewis' interpretation was just plain weird—especially since none of the other actors attempted contemporary versions of their characters.

Fortunately, the production is saved by a slew of supporting actors who excel in the plot's arguably more interesting side ventures. Greg McCormick Allen and Mo Brady are delightful as clerks Cornelius Hackl and Barnaby Tucker, who abandon Mr. Vandergelder's store to visit New York so they can eat a decent meal, see the stuffed whale at the museum, and, most important, kiss some girls. Suzanne Bouchard and Tracee Beazer are wonderful as the sweet hat-shop owner Irene Molloy and her well-meaning but ditzy assistant Minnie Fay, with whom the boys are smitten.

The show's highlight comes late in the second act, when the entire cast convenes at a restaurant and launches into a song-and-acrobatic-dance version of the title number.The charming routine had the audience applauding enthusiastically for two minutes-plus. ERIKA HOBART

PICK The Merchant of Venice

Center House Theatre, Seattle Center, 733-8222, www.seattleshakespeare.org. $22–$36. Runs Thurs.–Sun. Ends April 5.

More than 250 years before Stephen Foster transformed black slaves in the U.S. from objects of derision into sympathetic characters in song, William Shakespeare did Jewish folk a similarly questionable good turn in penning The Merchant of Venice. Foster made a daring leap in depicting slavery as inhumane, but he did not advocate emancipation. Likewise, Shakespeare seems to have wanted it both ways—to play to 16th-century prejudices by putting a vindictive money-grubber like Shylock front and center while simultaneously highlighting his inability to receive justice.

This comedy, as it's classified, remains one of the Bard's most-debated works, and this sharp new staging by the Seattle Shakespeare Company will continue to stoke the controversy. Los Angeles director John Langs (who staged last fall's assured revival of The Adding Machine) is back in Seattle, and not only has he set his Merchant during the 1929 stock market crash, but he's enlisted his wife, television actress Klea Scott, to play the female lead. There's a Gatsbyesque patina to his rendering, as well—the lines are sleek, the diction crisp, the delivery precise. It couldn't be more refined if the cast included Tim Gunn and Heidi Klum.