Stage Capsule Reviews

Affluenza! High praise goes to director Mark Ciglar and the bountifully gifted cast of James Sherman’s smart, tart comedy about the poisonous effects of having too much money. Sherman’s choice to write the show in rhyming couplets, à la Moliere, is distracting only until the ear gets used to it — then it becomes damned clever. Of the uniformly winning cast, Sean Grennan’s performance is particularly great, rich with wit and brattiness and, when it’s least expected, earned pathos. Jennifer James Bradshaw is terrific, too, recalling the late, great Judy Holiday in the classic Born Yesterday. Through Feb. 20 at American Heartland Theatre, 2450 Grand, 816-842-9999.

Flaming Idiots Despite a notorious, between-courses murder a couple of years ago, the New York City restaurant where it happened still boasts a nearly impenetrable waiting list. With due sympathy to the unlucky diner, it’s a great premise for a play. Tom Rooney’s door-slamming farce shifts the story to Miami, where an upscale new health-food eatery is floundering while a competitor across town — where a mobster was slain — can’t turn its tables fast enough. What if, Rooney proposes in his New American Comedy Festival Award-winning play, the former owners staged a similar shootout? Through Feb. 6 at Lawrence Community Theatre, 1501 New Hampshire, 785-843-7469

Follow the Drinking Gourd The way the show is described — a “charming story set in the era of slavery” — sounds uncomfortably akin to Condoleezza Rice’s recent testimony that the tsunami in Southeast Asia was “a wonderful opportunity” to ameliorate America’s reputation as a bully. Whoops. Nevertheless, it’s Paul Mesner Puppets’ good intention to honor Black History Month with a character named Peg Leg Joe who travels to many plantations, ostensibly to teach slaves to sing. The title song, though, is a coded message revealing an escape route out of Alabama and Mississippi to the more benign North. Feb. 2-6 and Feb. 9-13 at Unity Temple on the Plaza, 707 W. 47th St., 816-235-6222.

Frederick Douglass: Deliverance From Chains Gene Mackey’s memory play is about the title character’s journey from slave to statesman. The drama is set in a re-creation of Douglass’ final home in Washington, D.C., where the civil rights pioneer (Danny Cox) reminisces with Helen Pitts (Sheryl Bryant), his second wife, and a group of young history buffs. Among the themes he addresses are abolition, black employment obstacles and the controversy surrounding his marriage to Pitts, who happened to be white. Through Feb. 20 at Theatre for Young America, 5909 Johnson Drive in Mission, 913-831-2131.

Glengarry Glen Ross Any theater company kicking off the new year with a Pulitzer Prize-winning David Mamet play deserves attention. The Olathe Community Theater continues its 31st season in bed with a predatory pack of salesmen whose well-being pivots on how well they lie, cheat and steal. It’s as dark and twisted as a Francis Bacon painting. The dialogue is mellifluous, with a style of bruising verbiage and profanity that former New York Times critic Frank Rich called “hot jazz and wounding blues.” See it before the high-profile Broadway revival this spring with Alan Alda and Liev Schreiber. Through Jan. 29 at the Olathe Community Theater, 500 East Loula, 913-782-2990.

Improv-Abilities on Ice With the election, the holidays and the Olympics behind us, local improvisational comedy troupes may be stretching for themes. So it bodes well when one lands on something funny. Improv-Abilities aces its triple axel with this weekend’s Improv-Abilities on Ice. Co-director Tim Marks says the show, within the regular format of improv games and challenges, is a salute to “the beloved pageantry” of the Ice Capades “without all that pesky ice and fancy leapy stuff.” The troupe’s Historic Dance-a-Rama game, for example, in which a historic event is implied through interpretative dance, will be skated, albeit “on imaginary ice.” Jan. 29 at 7:30 p.m. at Lucky Brewgrille, 5401 Johnson Drive in Mission, 913-432-3044.

The Molire One Acts Sganarelle is the hottest name on the street — well, at least the streets around the University of Missouri-Kansas City Theater Department and Union Station, where the latter’s City Stage Theatre hosts the former’s celebration of Moliere’s most lovable rogues. In “The School for Husbands,” Sganarelle is a 17th-century bourgeois prig and misogynist whose interest in a young lady isn’t returned. The same name is given to a loutish and paranoid married man of the provinces in “The Imaginary Cuckold.” Though both were written between 1660 and 1662, the pieces confirm why Moliere’s romantic entanglements could be outtakes from Jen Chen’s Night Ranger column. Jan. 28-Feb. 12 at the UMKC Theater Department at Union Station’s H&R Block City Stage Theatre, 816-460-2020 or 816-235-6222.

Private Matters Humble Noel Coward was not. “What is the word when one has such terrific, prolific qualities?” Dick Cavett asked him in 1970. Coward quickly replied, “Talent.” One of the playwright’s best efforts, Private Lives, premiered in 1929 with Coward in the male lead. Centered on ex-spouses Elyot and Amanda, who meet by accident at a posh hotel with their new loves conspicuously in tow, it’s a sharp-witted comedy of manners, the likes of which theater audiences don’t see much anymore. Heading up the cast are Lindsay Erika Crain and Chris C. Rudy. Through Feb. 6 at the City Theatre of Independence, 201 N. Dodgion St., 816-325-7367.

Two Trains Running Playwright August Wilson is just one decade shy of his century-spanning 10-pack of plays about the African-American experience between 1900 and 2000. His newest effort, Gem of the Ocean, covers 1900-10 and is running on Broadway, and his take on the 1960s, Two Trains Running, opens this week at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre. Some feel that the play, set around the razing of a restaurant to make way for gentrification, is Wilson’s most soulful and personal. Directed by Lou Bellamy of St. Paul, Minnesota’s Penumbra Theatre, the show will follow its Rep run with performances at the historic Gem Theatre on 18th Street. Through Feb. 13 at the Kansas City Rep, 4949 Cherry, and Feb. 17-20 at the Gem, 1601 E. 18th St.; 816-235-2700 for both venues.