THEATER REVIEW: "Fifty Words" ★★★ Through June 26 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway; Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes; Tickets: $35-$40 at profilestheatre.org or 773-549-1815

There are nights in a marriage, particularly a busy marriage, especially a busy marriage with young children, when the stakes rise precipitously. It could be that an evening has finally arrived when both parties don't have to work. It could be a night at a hotel, or at home when the kids have gone for a sleepover, or maybe to their grandparents'. Whichever way, excuses for avoiding intimacy, in its myriad forms, suddenly vanish.

Such pressure-filled nights frequently are disappointing. Some of them can be perilous to a marriage.

Michael Weller's terrific 2008 off-Broadway play "Fifty Words" homes in on that stone-cold fact -- well-known by almost anyone in a long-term relationship -- and probes, with very striking alacrity and veracity, how the two-career, kitchen-with-Wi-Fi life can be a tinderbox just as easily as a refuge from workplace strife. At the office, people don't know how to hurt you as well as your partner does.

"Fifty Words" is, more than anything, a two-person drama about fights: how they start, where they can go, whether they can be contained.

Profiles Theatre has snagged the Chicago premiere of Martin McDonagh's recent Broadway play, "A Behanding in Spokane." Rick Snyder will direct the production, slated to open in early September.

The long-lived storefront also continues to enjoy a close relationship with playwright Neil LaBute, who has not only given Profiles the rights to his 2010 play "The Break of Noon," but has committed to further revising the script for the Profiles production. "The Break of Noon," which involves a man who survives an office shooting and believes he has had a divine vision, will open in the spring of 2012.

Between those shows, Profiles will stage "Bachelorette," an Off-Broadway play by Leslye Headland (opening in January) and, in November, the world premiere of a piece called "Assisted Living" by Deirdre O'Connor.

 
THEATER REVIEW: "reasons to be pretty" ★★½ Through March 13 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway; Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes; Tickets: $35-$40 at 773-549-1815 or www.profilestheatre.org

At the top of Neil LaBute's succulent “reasons to be pretty,” a young woman named Steph gets as mad as any young woman gets in any of LaBute's plays, even though they almost all contain lousy dudes worthy of female scorn. In this case, an offensive LaButian male has made the mistake of telling a buddy that (to paraphrase), while his girlfriend is just great and all that stuff, she does not possess what one would call a really cute face.

This indiscretion got reported back to its subject. And although the hero — maybe antihero — of LaBute's play tries to explain away what he thinks was surely a minor rhetorical indiscretion — there being nothing wrong, he insists, with a “regular face” — he finds himself in a situation from which it is well nigh impossible to recover.

Although Greg (played by Darrell W. Cox) is a stock guy in a big-box store (the rest of the play involves a also-troubled relationship between Kent and Carly, two married fellow workers), it's not hard to see this character as a stand-in for LaBute himself. Here's a writer who has often been put in a defensive position of apologizing for the treatment of women in his plays and being obliged to remind people that he is merely sticking real-life men on stage. “Reasons to be pretty,” which opened last Thursday at the Profiles Theatre, is thus LaBute's most reflective play to date and an uncommonly wise and direct drama about gender relations among the great swaths of ordinary citizens who inhabit exurban America.

There are playwrights who just write plays — maybe half a dozen over the course of a decade. And then there is Neil LaBute, an astonishingly prolific writer who not only writes major plays (“The Shape of Things,” “Fat Pig” et al ) and directs Hollywood movies ( “Nurse Betty,” “Death at a Funeral” et al), but seems to scribble away nonstop on a never-ending series of monologues, duologues, sketches, prose pieces, short stories, little screenplays.

Whenever he makes personal appearances or does readings, as he did at the Profiles Theatre Company on Saturday night, LaBute invariably shows up with a clutch of short manuscripts — some published, some polished, some being read for almost the first time.

There are, of course, certain common themes that float to the top, as they have since I first saw the works of the then-unknown (and Chicago-based) LaBute at the old Café Voltaire on Clark Street in the early 1990s. Power in human relationships is never equal. And you never really know the real motivations of your partner. Especially if you think they love you.

When one questioner at Saturday’s event asked, inevitably, why LaBute seemed so obsessed with dysfunctional affairs and men behaving badly, the playwright noted that such human agonies are the currency of drama. “My job,” he said, “is to throw a wrench in relationships. You have to look for the crack. The place that’s soft, or in pain, or about to break.”

Profiles Theatre will reprise its well-received production of Deirdre O'Connor's "Jailbait," beginning Jan. 13.

The remount will take place at Profiles new venue, The Second Stage. Located at 3408 N. Sheffield in the busy Wrigleyville commercial ara, The Second Stage is the former home of the Stage Left Theatre. One cast member has changed: Norma Serna has joined the show, replacing Zoe Levin.

This will be Profiles' first production here since it assumed the lease.

THEATER REVIEW: "Kid Sister" ★★★½ Through Dec.19 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway; Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes; Tickets: $30-$35 at 773-549-1815 and www.profilestheatre.org. With Darrell W. Cox and Allison Torem.

“Kid Sister,” the riveting, Chicago-style, slugfest shocker at the tiny Profiles Theatre, is billed as a modern dime novel. But this violent, pulpy, 85-minute show — which picks up where Tracy Letts' “Killer Joe” and Rebecca Gilman's “The Glory of Living” left off — has so much raw theatrical juice, dispensed right in your face, you don't so much exit the theater as stagger out onto Broadway, in search of a stiff drink.

This certainly isn't the first Profiles foray into the desperate underbelly of the white underclass. Such characters are this theater's specialty. But even though playwright Will Kern is certainly operating in very familiar stylistic territory in Chicago, you never know where this wildly intense and unfettered show is going next. Better yet, “Kid Sister” captures a level of social realism — amid all the outrageously violent shocks — that puts you in mind of the kind of panic that can set in among the young and ill-educated when their lives spiral out of control. It's a pulpy thriller, sure, but it also paints a vividly recognizable picture of a world, a world with consequences, where overgrown children have been suckered into the wrong kind of American dream.

THEATER REVIEW: "Jailbait" ★★★ Through Oct. 17 at Profiles Theatre, 4147 N. Broadway; Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes; Tickets: $30-35 at 773-549-1815 or www.profilestheatre.org

REPRISED RUN: Through Feb. 27 at the Second Stage, 3408 N. Sheffield Ave.; $30-$35 at 773-549-1815 or www.profilestheatre.org

With a title like “Jailbait” and a plot that involves two 15-year-old girls who sneak into a nightclub and seduce a couple of unwitting — well, mostly unwitting — older men, you might think that the season opener at the Profiles Theatre is a salacious night of theater.

You would not be entirely wrong. As Profiles well knows, the combustive power of sex and youth sells tickets. And this piece, well cast for its Chicago premiere by director Joe Jahraus, also comes replete with another ever-popular theatrical sensation: schadenfreude. Among men who prowl nighteries for pick-ups, the possibility of ending up with an underage girl who has disguised her age is one of those initially intriguing scenarios that can rapidly deteriorate into a legal and moral nightmare. At some points during Wednesday night’s opening, one could stare out at some of the single 20-somethings in the audience and see them squirming uncomfortably in their seats, mouths open at the horror of what had befallen Robert (Eric Burgher) and Mark (Shane Kenyon), the two male protagonists. Pity and fear were surely in the house. In the full Aristotelian sense.

The Black Ensemble Theatre is on track to move out of its current home in the Uptown Center Hull House, above, breaking ground in early September on a new space on North Clark Street. (Tribune photo by Alex Garcia)

On Sept. 10 — which happens to be my birthday — Gov. Patrick Quinn will stand outside 4440 N. Clark St. on Chicago's North Side with a shovel in his hand. He'll be breaking ground on the brand new Black Ensemble Theatre.

I hear Dionne Warwick might be along for the ride.

The groundbreaking, which will be officially announced next week, has been a long time coming for Black Ensemble, an upbeat and inclusive theater that specializes in biographical and conceptual musicals featuring African-American blues, jazz, soul, rock and pop greats. But founding artistic director Jackie Taylor was smart enough to cut back the scale of her new theater when the recession hit — and nearly 90 percent of the relatively modest $15 million cost has already been raised. It looks like it is really going to happen. At long last, Black Ensemble will be out of the basement of the former Hull House on North Beacon Street. Huzzah.

I suspect the governor will have a good time. He's an enthusiastic supporter of theater in general and musicals in particular. He's a regular at “Million Dollar Quartet,” which has now played to more than 200,000 people in Chicago and shows no signs of slowing down. And if Quinn takes a moment to look at that particular block of Clark Street (I was over there this week), he'll see that the new Black Ensemble will provide an ideal opportunity for an arts organization to revitalize a neighborhood. That block, which features many stark buildings, needs some help.

Black Ensemble will be a new theater built from the ground up (actually two theaters, one with 300 seats and one with 50). But as I reported earlier this year, the office and parking space will be in an existing warehouse building. That will save a lot of money. It also has helped me notice a new trend in town — recycled theaters.

There are at least four theaters being reborn this fall under a new name, including the reincarnation of the former Drury Lane Water Tower as the Broadway Playhouse, operated by Broadway in Chicago. Theatre Wit kicks into higher gear in the former Bailiwick Repertory Theatre at 1229 W. Belmont Ave., with a slate including a new production of the Roger Miller musical “Big River,” produced by the Bohemian Theatre Ensemble.

Earlier this week, Profiles Theatre said it would take over the old Stage Left Theatre at 3408 N. Sheffield Ave. and use it both as a space to transfer long-running shows and as a much-needed new rental space for storefront theaters. The space was on the official Chris Jones List of Endangered Chicago Theaters (it's in a high-profile block virtually in the shadow of Wrigley Field), along with the nearby Mercury Theatre (no news there, unfortunately). So it's good to see this spot remain in the family, so to speak.

Profiles Theatre said Monday that it has taken over the lease on the former home of the Stage Left Theatre, 3408 N. Sheffield Ave.

Profiles said they plan to use the 50-seat theater as a space to transfer long-running Profiles shows and also make it available for rentals.  The Sheffield Avenue space has been a theater for many years; Profiles also said it wants to ensure that remains the case. Profiles (at 4147 N. Broadway, a mile north) takes over Sept. 1.

- CHRIS JONES

Neil LaBute continues to be very good to Chicago's Profiles Theatre.  

The prolific playwright, screenwriter and movie director, who got his start in the Off-Loop scene, has given the storefront operation (which has about 50 seats) the rights to the Chicago premiere of his 2009 Broadway play, "Reasons to be Pretty," a piece set in a warehouse club in Suburban Chicago. It was directed on Broadway by Terry Kinney, a Steppenwolf ensemble member.

LaBute will also make a personal appearance on Jan. 8 ("An Evening with Neil LaBute 2011: Live and in Person") in support of Profiles' fundraising campaign. "Reasons to be Pretty" opens in January on Chicago's North Side. Rick Snyder will direct a cast that includes Profiles ensemble members Somer Benson and Darrell W. Cox.

Also on the 2010-11 Profiles slate: "Jailbait" by Diedre O'Conner (slated for the fall), "Kid Sister," a new play by Will Kern, best known in Chicago for writing "Hellcab;" and "Fifty Words" by Michael Weller.

— Chris Jones