Stage Capsule Reviews

ProofThe Barn Players' pendulum, which typically swings between cheery community-theater fare and more difficult stuff, has stopped in the middle lately. Urinetownand The Full Montytook more guts to mount than, say, The Music Man, but even most Mennonites wouldn't have been offended by them. David Auburn's Pulitzer- and Tony-winning Proofis another one straight up the middle, a drama too risky for the New Theatre or the Heartland but right at home in Mission. With numerous performances around town in recent years, the show — about the legacy of brilliance and madness that a mathematician leaves his family — is almost a standard. Through May 27 at the Barn Players, 6219 Martway, Mission, 913-432-9100. (Alan Scherstuhl)

The Syringa TreePamela Gien's visceral, sentimental one-woman play about growing up white and wealthy in apartheid-era Johannesburg, South Africa, is tricked out by the Rep (and director Sharon Ott) as a full-cast drama. The results are mixed but never uninteresting. There's often beauty in the way it hopscotches from memory to memory, and most of the production's physical aspects are exquisite. But the show's monologue origins result in tableaux instead of scenes. Despite strong work from Kate Goehring and Shanseia Davis, this is too often an illustrated storybook instead of a living drama. Still, it's nice to see new, challenging work from the Rep, especially in a season that has relied too often on the tried and tired. Through May 27 at the Copaken Stage in the H&R Block Building, 13th St. & Walnut, 816-235-2700. Reviewed in our May 10 issue.(Alan Scherstuhl)