Emma, Trap Door Theatre, through Dec. 1. Beata Pilch embodies radical intelligence as Emma Goldman in a fire-breathing tale of the iconoclastic champion of workers and women’s rights in the days of robber barons before ‘feminism’ even was a word. CS
Merchant On Venice, Silk Road Theatre Project, through Nov. 18. This Shakespeare update, reflecting ethnic tensions in Southern California, sounds like sketch comedy gone wild, but rendered with care and intelligence it’s both admirable and entertaining. MSB
A Park in Our House, Victory Gardens Biograph, through Dec. 9. A tale of 1970’s Cuban family life by out Cuban-born Pulitzer Prize playwright Nilo Cruz. It overlaps The Cook (reviewed this issue) by Cuban-born Eduardo Machado. See both and compare. JA
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge and Sullivan