Opening This Week

Hair!
Live On Stage presents the seminal hippie musical. World Trade Center Auditorium, 121 SW Salmon, 280-LIVE, 8 pm Oct 19-22, 26-29, $25

Nixon's Nixon
Coho Productions enters its 10th season of producing theater with Russell Lee's satirical peek into what might have gone down when Richard Nixon met up with Henry Kissinger in 1974, hours before he announced his resignation. Coho Theatre, 2257 NW Raleigh, 232-7072, Opens Fri, runs Thurs-Sat 8 pm, Sun 2 pm, through Nov 26, $19-22

One Week Only

Costume Sale
Once again, just in time for Halloween, Lakewood flushes out its costume accessories at reasonable prices. The theater is ridiculously well-funded, so you might snag something worth snagging. Lakewood Theatre Company, 368 S State St, 635-3901, Sat-Sun 10 am-4 pm

Closing This Week

The Hyacinth Macaw
The second play in Mac Wellman's four-part "Crowtet," defunkt's production of Macaw doubles as offbeat family drama and frenetic deconstruction of theatrical realism. A strange man named Mr. William Hard (James Moore) arrives at an unusual home; the tearing apart of a family ensues. Father Ray (Tom Moorman) realizes that he is a "duplicate," mother Dora (Lori Sue Hoffman) is lured away by a folk-singing Chinaman (kollodi), and William and daughter Sue (Frances Binder) bury the moon in the backyard. If there is significance to any of this, beyond sheer poetic anarchy, it escaped me. The script is combatively wordy, and the cast and crew prove unable to render the piece accessible or even remotely comprehensible. In what is overall a hysterically verbose production, it's telling that one of the most riveting scenes takes place in complete silence, when the gravity that Frances Binder brings to quietly rolling a cigarette proves more affecting than any dialogue. AH Back Door, 4321 SE Hawthorne, 481-2960, Thurs-Sat 8 pm, $8-15

Current Runs

The Guys
The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center celebrates being 95 years old with an in-house production of Anne Nelson's play about the firemen who served during 9/11. Directed by Edgar Reynolds and starring Caren Grahm and Danny Bruno. IFCC, 5340 N Interstate, 823-4322, Thurs-Sat 8 pm, Sun 7 pm, through Oct 29, $10-15

The Talley Trilogy
Talley's Folly and Talley and Son are the first two parts of Lanford Wilson's Talley Trilogy, their respective events occurring simultaneously within the small-town Missouri, World War II era they inhabit. That being said, the Profile Theatre Project alleges to be the only theater company in history to actually perform them simultaneously, with actors moving between two stages. Wilson's plays are certainly dated, but there's not much of a 1940s feel to either of these PTP productions, especially Talley's Folly. Deirdre Atkinson's Sally, for instance, is quite modern, her delivery wrought with the forced sarcasm of a WB sitcom. If you're bent on seeing at least one of these works, make it Talley and Son. Somewhat soap opera-esque, it's nothing ingenious either, but it boasts better performances, notably from Stephanie Shininger as a neurotic in-law and Jean Miller as the eccentric aunt. WG Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont, 242-0080, Wed-Sat 8 pm, Sun 2 pm, through Oct 30

Underneath the Lintel
Oregon native Time Winters is "the Librarian," a Dutchman living in a provincial town. When a book gets returned to his library 113 years late, he embarks on a quest to track the guilty borrower down, enthusiastically playing detective and unearthing a stream of clues that leads him on a rambling journey back and forth across the world. Lintel's geographical-historical zigzag is a brilliant platform for playwright Glen Berger to explore with zeal his favorite theme: man/woman's purpose in an incomprehensively vast universe. But there's a fine line between zeal and hyperactivity, and as Berger's script moves from lighthearted mystery adventure to existential rumination, the ideas start to crowd each other a bit. JWS Portland Center Stage, 1111 SW Broadway, 274-6588, Tues-Wed, Sun 7 pm, Thurs-Sat 8 pm, Sat-Sun 2 pm, through Oct 30, $15-56

Comedy/Improv

Scary Movie
The Brody's super-rad Halloween-themed Scary Movie is back, at which improvisers make up a whole creature feature movie on the spot, and the theater becomes a veritable museum of vintage horror and sci-fi memorabilia. Brody Theater, 1904 NW 27th, 224-0688, Fri-Sat 8 pm, through Oct 29, $10

Necrophabulous
The vaudeville-inspired sketch comedy troupe, The Tragedies, has a spiffy website (www.thetragedies.com), a podcast, a slick marketing campaign with press packets inside cute little coffins, and plenty of merchandise like t-shirts and stickers. Now they just need a show title that doesn't make us retch. Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, 5340 N Interstate, 367-2100, Fri-Sat 10:30 pm, $7-10