The Caretaker, Mary-Arrchie Theatre Company, through April 12. Chicago's ensemble style is a perfect fit for the plays of Harold Pinter, and veteran storefront actor Richard Cotovsky is perfect to play the itinerant drifter at the center of this enigmatic drama. MSB
Carousel, Court Theatre, through April 13. The great, dark Rodgers & Hammerstein classic performed by an attractive cast in a dramatically intimate but visually sweeping production, accompanied by strings and woodwinds. Court's best musical to date. JA
In a Dark, Dark House, Profiles Theatre, through May 11. Once more director Joe Jahraus and Off-Loop leading man Darrell W. Cox team up for a dark Neil LaBute tale, this one about brothers on a psych ward dealing with traumas of the past. Delicious. CS
M. Butterfly, Bohemian Theatre Ensemble at Heartland Studio; through April 20. This artful storefront production of David Henry Hwang's 1988 breakthrough drama is scathingly intelligent and funny. SCM
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge, Morgan
and Sullivan