So much to see, so little time– here are few more productions in order of preference beginning with:

33 VARIATIONS–This lovely and satisfying production at the Lyric Stage, elegantly directed by Spiro Veloudos and written by Moises Kaufman, is a tale of two creative minds trying to solve a problem in a race against time. The stories parallel and intersect. One story involves a present-day musicologist with a complicated relationship with her daughter and steadily encroaching Lou Gehrig’s disease. The role is skillfully handled by the remarkable Paula Plum who instantly locates the humor and humanity of the character within her increasing physical limitations.  She relentlessly searches for the “why” behind Beethoven’s fascination with a simple waltz composed by Anton Diabelli that has apparently inspired extraordinary creative output. The other story involves Beethoven’s obsession with that melody– enough to compose 33 variations– even as he’s going deaf.

Both answers involve the notion of art perfecting life, creativity as a function of suffering– AND a mechanism for healing.  The excellent cast –which includes Will McGarrahan as the sketchy Diabelli and Maureen Keiller whose German Dr. Ladenberger is scarier than Beethoven– often comes together as a musical ensemble, with the dialogue in harmonious counterpoint, linking the stories to each other across centuries and sensibilities. And then there are the variations themselves played live onstage by pianist Catherine Stornetta. It was all music to my ears.

See 33 VARIATIONS through February 2 at The Lyric Stage Company!

OTHER DESERT CITIES–This is a bit of a potboiler by Jon Robin Baitz at the SpeakEasy, directed by Scott Edmiston with a killer cast. Anne Gottlieb plays the prodigal daughter Brooke – a liberal leaning novelist who’s come home to her Reaganesque family on Christmas Eve with a gift for the entire dysfunctional family: a “tell-all” memoir she’s about to publish involving a tragic episode in the clan’s history. Karen McDonald nails it as the cocktail swirling Jewish Republican matriarch in capris and kitten heels, while Nancy E. Carroll as her dotty, left-leaning, alcoholic sister Silda crashes in like Seinfeld’s Kramer; her political barbs bring the house down and the family nearly to blows.

The performance got off to a stilted start as it laid out the loaded family dynamics.  The believability of these characters is undercut by the diagrammatic points of view they obviously represent. The dilemma the drama settles on is an interesting one–whose rights trump whose when it comes to the boundaries of a story involving a whole a family and its privacy. I found myself on both sides of the issue, but mostly wanting to strangle the self-righteous daughter who– we are expected to believe– decided to trust an obviously biased relative for an “objective” version of the tale she’s researching. It all builds to a superficially engaging but melodramatic– and ultimately shallow– climax.

The bottom line? There’s not much growing in this desert beyond the catchy premise, performances, and one-liners. I left parched for more.

OTHER DESERT CITIES runs through Feb 9 at THE SPEAKEASY STAGE COMPANY.

MARRY ME A LITTLE–-At the New Repertory Theatre, barely kept me conscious. Four actors with voices of similar timbre sing a smattering of Sondheim songs that all sound the same. The staging is static to non-existent. Thank goodness the wonderful Erica Spyres also played the violin. It broke up the monotony. Onstage through January 27.