Now Playing

 Amy's View. The protagonist of David Hare's Amy's View is a London stage actress, Esme Allen. By the play's opening, her star has dimmed and she hasn't worked in a few years. Still, she's stylish and witty, accustomed to sweeping into rooms and commanding attention. She believes in the theater as an art form and as a purveyor of culture. But Esme's daughter, Amy, has fallen for Dominic, a young man with directly antithetical values, an American -- almost always shorthand for vulgar and corrupt in English drama -- who's a critic and would-be film director and who hates what he considers the elitism of conventional theater. He believes in populist art; the traditions of his adopted country mean nothing to him. While the fate of traditional art and culture in a fast-paced, visual, hyper-kinetic and hyper-communicative world is one of Hare's themes, Amy's View is also about the troubled relationship between Esme and Amy -- with a side glance at the evils of capitalism, as exemplified by the corruption of Lloyd's of London. Presented by Miners Alley Playhouse through March 19, 1224 Washington Avenue, Suite 200, Golden, 303-935-3044, www.minersalley.com

Impulse Theater. Basements and comedy go together like beer and nuts or toddlers and sandboxes. The basement of the Wynkoop Brewing Co., where Impulse Theater performs, is crowded, loud and energetic. Impulse does no prepared skits, nothing but pure improv -- which means that what you see changes every night, and so does the team of actors. These actors set up and follow certain rules and frameworks; they rely on audience suggestions to get these scenes going or to vary the action. Your level of enjoyment depends a lot on whether or not you like the players. Charm is a factor, and so is the ability to take risks. Fortunately, the performers are clever and fast on their feet, willing to throw themselves into the action but never betraying tension or anxiety, perfectly content to shrug off a piece that isn't coming together. The show is funny when the actors hit a groove, but equally funny when they get stymied. So in a way, the improvisers -- and the audience -- can't lose. Presented by Impulse Theater in an open-ended run, Wynkoop Brewing Co., 1634 18th Street, 303-297-2111 or www.impulsetheater.com.

The King and I. Some of the problems with this production are inherent in the show itself. With its emphasis on strong women and abhorrence of anything resembling slavery, The King and I was progressive for its time, but no artist can entirely escape the myths and preconceptions of his own culture. So Rodgers and Hammerstein showed the people of Thailand as caricatures -- the women seductive and giggly, the men stiff as cardboard cutouts. The King -- in some ways and on his own terms a wonderfully humorous and quixotic character -- is still in need of civilizing. And who best to do it but a white, upper-class Englishwoman? The songs endure. No one ever wrote better love songs than Rodgers and Hammerstein. Shelly Cox-Robie makes Anna charming and radiant, and her voice is sweet and pure. Wayne Kennedy does sterling service as the King, though he makes the character funny and cuddly; there's no hint here of the dangerous, mercurial figure we expect, and that would jolt the plot into life. Presented by Boulder's Dinner Theatre through March 26, 5501 Arapahoe Avenue, Boulder, 303-449-6000, www.theatreinboulder.com. Reviewed November 10.