Now Playing

Animal Farm. Germinal Stage’s new theater — only a few miles from the one the company left last year, and even smaller — is cozy, welcoming and workable. Walking in feels a bit like entering a time warp. The Germinal faithful, along with a few young initiates, throng the lobby, and the only changes are minor: The scent of artistic director Ed Baierlein’s pipe smoke hasn’t yet completely permeated the building, and there’s a shiny new coffeepot in place of the dingy ancient one that for decades produced the bitterest, dreggiest coffee in town. Baierlein is still focusing on playwrights whose work he’s explored often before, and using many of the same actors. This Animal Farm is almost exactly the same as the one he mounted in 2003, and there’s only one new member in the five-person cast. Still, the show is tight and convincing and not the least bit stale, and George Orwell’s satirical parable about the dangers of totalitarianism feels even more germane today as the shadows falling across our world darken and lengthen. Orwell’s pseudo-children’s story tells the tale of a group of abused and hungry animals who drive their cruel farmer off his land and take over, determined to create a utopia under the guidance of the cleverest species among them, the pigs. But soon the pigs are assuming human prerogatives and the animals’ beautiful revolution is falling apart. Orwell caricatures with deadly accuracy the techniques of the Soviet Union and other totalitarian regimes: the show trials, the propaganda methods, the use of religion to mitigate earthly distress. Snowball, the comrade-pig who genuinely tried to better everyone’s lives, is driven away and then shows up in the pigs’ propaganda as a demonic larger-than-life figure bent on sabotage. All of this is conveyed with clarity and wit. Presented by Germinal Stage through September 14, 73rd Avenue Playhouse, 7287 Lowell Boulevard, Westminster, 303-455-7108, germinalstage.com. Reviewed September 4.

Mack & Mabel. Mack & Mabel has a brilliant score and a piss-poor book. The musical purports to tell the story of the confused and conflicted love between Mack Sennett, impresario of the early comic silent movies, and Mabel Normand, the young woman he discovered and made a star. The score is by Jerry Herman, songwriter for Mame, Hello Dolly and La Cage Aux Folles, and is one of his best and most sophisticated — but the show still flopped on Broadway. There are humorous authentic musical touches, and the evening is lofted by one brilliant, exciting number after another — all well-performed by a troupe of accomplished singers and dancers. But these songs might best be presented in concert on their own. The real Mack and Mabel story was dark. Sennett was a dictatorial swine and Mabel a self-destructive drug addict. Michael Stewart’s book tries to have it both ways, including the dark elements, but minimizing them. The result is that you never care much about them or the relationship. The moments in which Sennett arrives at his most famous ideas — the rows of bathing beauties, the Keystone Kops, the pie-in-the-face routine — are skillfully choreographed and well-timed. But though they’re interesting, they’re not really that funny. The odd, on-the-edge quality of “Hit ‘Em On the Head,” in which Sennett and his backers sing enthusiastically about the thumps, bumps and falls of 1920s movie comedy, exemplifies the dark-light nature of the material: the melody is bright and fast, the lyrics mildly sadistic. There’s no reason a musical can’t deliver complexity as well as entertainment, but that requires more psychological exploration than Stewart attempted. Presented by Vintage Theatre through September 14, 1468 Dayton Street, Aurora, 303-856-7830, vintagetheatre.org. Reviewed August 21.