Kita y Fernanda, 16th Street Theater, through Oct. 25. Playwright Tanya Saracho and director Ann Filmer team up for an emotionally gripping, multi-layered and intelligently written story of a wealthy Mexican-American and her illegal immigrant maid. Stephanie Diaz and the ever-luminous Charin Alverez anchor one of the best ensembles of the season. CS
R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), Strawdog Theatre, through Oct. 26. Strawdog’s lively adaptation holds a contemporary lens up to Karel Capek’s post-Commie caveat on the consequences of morally-unfocused technology. It reminds us why today’s industrial ‘bots aren’t built to look TOO human. MSB
Streamers, Gift Theatre, through Nov. 16. David Rabe’s 1976 look at class, race and sexuality the military in the 1960s may be dated by today’s standards, but Gift Theatre’s visceral and intimate production succeeds at unsettling precisely on that point. SCM
The Voysey Inheritance, Remy Bumppo through Nov. 2. A banking melt-down, lax regulation and family collusion. It’s not Bush economic policy but a well-done staging of Harley Granville-Barker’s crackling 1905 British drama as adapted by David Mamet. JA
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge, Morgan
and Sullivan