THEATER REVIEW: "Marisol" ★★ Through July 31 at The Artistic Home, 3914 N. Clark St.; Running time: 2 hours; Tickets: $28 at 866-811-4111 or www.theartistichome.org

In Jose Rivera's “Marisol,” New York City is a terrifying place: crime-ridden, graffiti-strewn, filled with displaced souls and not so different, really, from a war zone. No wonder its central character acquires a guardian angel.

The great Puerto Rican playwright penned this piece in 1992 — toward the end, really, of the great urban decline and just prior to the law-and-order cleanups that created, depending on your point of view, a reborn Manhattan or an increasingly expensive and stratified urban theme park where most Americans can barely afford a hotel, let alone an apartment. Either way, it's incontrovertibly true that American cities have changed, and this play seems to look back on a very different New York City.

Although this is certainly a creative, honest and well-acted staging of a play that's among Rivera's most interesting and visceral works (it's a good example of why the overused term “magic realism” has become so inadequate), I kept waiting for John Mossman's production at The Artistic Home to explore what this work means in the here-and-now. That does not really happen; this isn't a production that makes the case for its own relevance. That's often a danger in a theater company that concentrates primarily on the craft of acting.

New theater reviews in the Tribune this week:

Kerry Reid gives ★★★ to "The Moonstone" (Through March 27 at Lifeline Theatre, 6912 N. Glenwood Ave.; Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes; Tickets: $32-$35 at 773-761-4477 or lifelinetheatre.com).

"This isn’t a thrill-a-minute ride," she writes, "but a cozy immersion in the tropes that would later dominate the world of mystery writers: strange visitors, double-dealing relatives, and eccentric detectives." Read the full review here.

Nina Metz likewise gives ★★★ to "Trouble in Mind" (Through March 20 by The Artistic Home, 3914 N. Clark St.; Running time: 2 hours; Tickets: $28 at 866-811-4111 or theartistichome.org).

The 1955 backstage drama by the groundbreaking black playwright Alice Childress shows "she was nothing if not incisive about the way stereotypes can become a self-fulfilling prophecy," writes Metz. "She also had a heck of a sense of humor. ... The play is also hilariously savage in its portrayal of theater artists as prima donas. They arrive to work on an anti-lynching play — a mixed-race cast led by a white director — and as they dig in, a veteran actress named Wiletta (played with real wit and verve by Velma Austin) begins to question the veracity of her character’s choices. She’s been down this road before and she’s reached her breaking point. “All I did was holler, ‘Lawd have mercy!’ for two hours.” Read the full review here.

In "Sweet Bird of Youth" now at The Artistic Home, Kathy Scambiatterra makes it hard to imagine anyone else in Tennessee Williams' role of the fading Princess Kosmonopolis, says Nina Metz in her ★★★½ review for the Tribune. "And it doesn't hurt that she rattles off her lines with a voice that sounds as if she spent the morning gargling vodka and cigarette ash."

(Posted by Doug George)

Kerry Reid gives ★★★½ to Thornton Wilder's "The Skin of Our Teeth" at The Artistic Home through March 21; and ★★★ to Strangeloop Theatre's production of Brian Friel's "Living Quarters," through March 14 at Trap Door Theatre.

Read her double review from this week's On The Town section here.

THEATER REVIEW

The Artistic Home never has much room for an audience.

That’s not because this very serious, actor-centered and craft-oriented Chicago theater company is always packed to the gills, although it enjoys a loyal group of fans. And it’s not because it has always operated in very small theaters. In this town, that’s hardly unusual.

What sets Artistic Home apart is the way it integrates the paying customers into the artistic environment. You can see it in John Mossman’s simple and moving production of Sean O’Casey’s “Juno and the Paycock,” a classic drama of politics and poverty. The audience, which can number no more than about three dozen, is separated into little groups of seating shoved into the dark corners of this one-room representation of a one-room Dublin tenement.

One feels a lot like a piece of furniture. Or part of a small family of mice, staring out at the miserable human inhabitants gnawing one another to bits