Iphigenia At Aulis, Rogue Theatre at the Athenaeum, through Aug. 28. The first play of Rogue's Oresteia trilogy refutes the notion that war can ever be a simple matter of 'right and wrong' in Kirsten Broockman's ruminative adaptation of Euripedes' tragedy. MSB
The Merry Widow, Light Opera Works, Cahn Auditorium ( Evanston ) , Aug. 20-28. This beloved operetta—the ultimate Viennese pastry—is 100 years old in 2005. LOW burnishes it with a full orchestra as always, a new translation and a suitably lush production. JA
The Pain and the Itch, Steppenwolf, through Aug. 28. In the hands of a less skillful author, this beautifully acted and directed dark comedy would be ludicrous. Instead, author Bruce Norris brilliantly sees a dissolving American family as a microcosm of US geo-politics. JA
Sextet, Eclipse Theatre at Victory Gardens, through Sept. 11. Years before the boys in the band had their party, an aging drag queen looked back on her life in The Madness of Lady Bright, one of six short plays by gay Pulitzer Prize winning author Lanford Wilson. MSB
— By Jonathan Abarbanel and Mary Shen Barnidge