Our critics weigh in on local theater

Killer Joe. Marin Theatre Company's sold-out production of playwright Tracy Letts' Killer Joe has moved to the Magic Theatre, and reactions couldn't be stronger. It's essentially a hillbilly noir set in a Texas trailer park, in which members of the white-trash Smith family (giving new meaning to skid-marked tighty-whities and greasy wife-beater tank tops) hire a contract killer with "eyes that hurt" (a sinister Cully Fredricksen) to kill the dim-witted dad Ansel's ex-wife in order to cash in on a $50,000 insurance policy. But Lee Sankowich's directorial pacing is erratic, and the performers use vastly different styles. The hilarious Howard Swain (as Ansel) appears to have fallen out of a Cheech & Chong movie, while Stacy Ross (as Ansel's new wife, Sharla) is superb in her adulterous realism. The first act ends in a beguiling, slow seduction between the killer and the virginal underage daughter (Anna Bullard); after intermission the show cranks the violence up so high that it rivals the most gleefully disturbing moments of a Tarantino flick. But the excruciating and titillating difference is that this is live theater, not the relative safety of celluloid. Killer Joe's visceral punch to the privates may explain the two outraged audience walkouts on the night I attended as well as the miniÐstanding ovation, marking what I'd call a successful night at the theater. Through Aug. 13 at the Magic Theatre, Fort Mason Center, Marina & Buchanan, S.F. Tickets are $30-45; call 441-8822 or visit www.killerjoesf.com. (Nathaniel Eaton) Reviewed June 21.

The Legendary and Fabulous Passion Play. In El Gato Del Diablo Theatre Company's playful reimagining of the Passion play (a dramatic representation of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus popular in medieval times), the disciples are a bunch of born-again queers, and the Son of God a transsexual. When four twentysomethings find themselves shunned by their friends and families for falling in love with the wrong people, they turn to Jesús Esperanza, a streetwise drag queen with a maternal streak and a serious migraine problem, for guidance. Featuring a disco-dancing competition (slickly choreographed by Wendy Marinaccio), a double gay wedding, and choruses from members of a sinister religious cult, Shawn Ferreyra's fluorescent comedy is as Messianic as a Mexican soap opera. Nevertheless, the show's message about marital equality is delivered with such sass by the cast of five that the violently tacky Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence-meets-John Travolta aesthetic works. Norman Muñoz makes for one of the most deliciously sensual transsexuals to have sashayed across San Francisco stages in recent years. And even though the dialogue is as thin as a communion wafer, you've got to give credit to actors who pull off lines like this conversation between two characters: "I believe in the boogie." "But does the boogie believe in you?" Through Aug. 19 at the Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy (between Mason and Taylor), S.F. Tickets are $20; call 664-5276 or visit www.elgatotheatre.org. (Chloe Veltman) Reviewed Aug. 2.

ORBIT (Notes From the Edge of Forever). Combining live and recorded music, choreography, spoken text, video projections, televised images, and an interactive set, Erika Shuch Performance Project's latest, and very beautiful, movement theater piece is all about humanity's frenzied and largely frustrated attempts to forge connections with worlds beyond our own. References to scientific principles — from the mnemonic used by astronomers to remember the arrangement of stars according to particular spectral characteristics to the RGB color model — are batted about on stage like the pixilated ball in a game of Pong. But like this early computer game, most of the show's scientific content is goofily low-tech. As references to Ridley Scott's 1979 movie, Alien, and Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) suggest, the world of science-fiction fantasy is a more powerful means for forging links with the cosmos than empirical science. Just as two lovers, portrayed by Danny Wolohan and Erika Chong Shuch (who also choreographs and directs), orbit around each other, rarely able to bond, the production reveals humanity's frenzied and largely frustrated attempts to forge connections with those we love most. Through Aug. 12 at Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia (between 15th and 16th sts.), S.F. Tickets are $9-20; call 626-3311 or visit www.theintersection.org. (Chloe Veltman) Reviewed July 26.