ACT's The Price makes good sense to see

Charles Leggett and Peter Silbert and Peter Lohnes in The Price
Photo: Chris Bennion 

The Price
by Arthur Miller
directed by Victor Pappas
starring Anne Allgood, Charles Leggett, Peter Lohnes, Peter Silbert
ACT Theatre
through June 22

Arthur Miller's play The Price is now on ACT Theatre's main stage with four top-notch actors. The play is now a period piece dated 1967, but with a timeless theme: family relationships.

Victor Franz (Charles Leggett), a New York cop, is finally forced to sell the family furniture due to imminent destruction of the building by new owners. A lifetime of "stuff" has been sitting untouched in the sixteen years of Victor's father's passing. He has invited a furniture appraiser (Peter Silbert) to give him a price. Victor wants it all gone and does not wish to sell off only the good pieces to Solomon.

Victor's other dilemma, as he discusses it with his wife Esther (Anne Allgood), is whether to split to proceeds with his unavailable brother, Walter (Peter Lohnes). Walter has refused to answer any phone calls or messages and Esther, who is more concerned about money than Victor is, thinks Victor should just keep all the money he gets for the furniture. Walter is a successful and prosperous doctor and doesn't need it.

Sound Theatre's "A Small Fire" is a little jewel in a jewelbox

Teri Lazzara and Sara Coates in A Small Fire (photo by Ken Holmes)

A Small Fire
by Adam Bock
directed by Julie Beckman
starring Teri Lazzara, Gordon Carpenter, Sara Coates, Ray Tagavilla
Sound Theatre Company
(at New City Theater, 18th and Union)
through June 21

Sound Theatre Company's season is set to examine the language of love and hate, they say, and their first production, A Small Fire, exhibits both in a searing exploration of family relationships during the height of illness.

The play by Adam Bock creates a brusk, non-nonsense woman (Teri Lazarra) whose feelings are so deeply buried that she doesn't have time to find them. She treats people with a no-nonsense air and a hurried manner that makes them feel like they're in her way. Her daughter (Sara Coates) has a lifetime of hurt from her mother's truth-hurts unboundaried comments, especially about her fiance. Her daughter even thinks that her father (Gordon Carpenter) should leave her mother and be happier without being berated by this demanding woman.

It remains for a co-worker, Billy (Ray Tagavilla) to demonstrate to us how much care is covered up by her brusk manner, as he details how she showed her belief in him by watching over him, yelling at him, and having others make him stick to his work or keep him from straying off the straight and narrow.