The Bald Soprano

In 1948, the French-Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco set about learning English. He didn't succeed. He did, however, manage to write an intensely ridiculous version of the dialogues he found in English-language primers ("This is my husband. We live in London. It is now three o'clock."). The result was The Bald Soprano (La cantatrice chauve). In Cutting Ball's new production, translated and directed by Rob Melrose, the play is as revelatory as ever, in part because it's much funnier than you might remember. That's very much to Melrose's credit, but he is helped tremendously by Paige Rogers, who finds just the right pitch for her batty housewife. (She manages to say things like "I don't know enough Spanish to understand myself" with the deranged dignity of someone who puts great stock in her own nonsense.) Crisply staged on a spare and handsome set, the play doesn't offer much of a story, which is more or less the point: Each character speaks without seeming to hear the others. Language conquers silence, but fails to deliver meaning. The whole thing builds to a gorgeously choreographed frenzy, with the actors shouting ragged bits of dialogue while throwing themselves against a wall. It's glorious and weird, and you absolutely shouldn't miss it.