"The Birds" by TheatreX at the Hive Collaborative

Irish playwright Conor McPherson's play The Birds could be a series in The Walking Dead Universe, but with birds instead of zombies. Like the ever-expanding TV world, the real trouble comes from the humans, not the dangerous creatures that have launched humans into a post-apocalyptic world. The play is based on the same short story that the 1963 Hitchcock movie is, but from my understanding (never having seen the movie), the characters and plotline are different. This story is an intimate, almost claustrophobic, one, focusing on just four characters and how they react to this new world order. This is the first production I've seen by new-ish #TCTheater company TheatreX, which launched in 2018 with an adaptation of the novel The Haunting of Hill House, staged in St. Paul's own Hill House, which I somehow missed. I'm happy to have finally caught one of their productions, the slow build tension filled examination of the human psyche that is The Birds. See it at The Hive Collaborative through April 27.

"Legacy of Light" at Theatre in the Round

A historical fiction rom com featuring female scientists? Sign me up! Playwright Karen Zacarías' Legacy of Light, now on stage at Theatre in the Round, is just my kind of play. It has a little of everything - comedy, romance, history, philosophy, poetry, science, fantasy, love, grief. The true story of 18th Century French mathematician and physicist Émilie du Châtelet is told alongside of the story of a fictional modern female scientist, the two stories speaking to each other in expected ways. A smart and funny play about smart, funny, strong women, their ambitions and accomplishments, as well as the obstacles they face because of their sex, is just what we need right now. See this lovely production at Theatre in the Round weekends through March 16.

"Doubt: A Parable" at Theatre in the Round

To open their historic 71st season, Theatre in the Round is presenting the 2005 Tony-winning best play Doubt: A Parable. In roughly 90 minutes, the intense and tautly written play explores ideas of faith, doubt, gender, race, class, sexual abuse, and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that allowed such abuses to continue. Presented in a series of mostly two-person scenes, expertly written and well performed by this cast, the play is not so much about whether the accused is innocent or guilty, but about how we as humans deal with the doubt and uncertainty that exists in many areas of life. Doubt is truly a parable that can be applied to so many situations (especially today with so many sources of "truth" flying at us), with no clear answers, leaving the audience feeling a bit unsettled.