The Count of Monte Cristo, Lifeline Theatre, extended through Nov. 13. You dedicate your being to revenge and get it. Then what? Where’s your life? This handsome but cerebral adaptation (vs. swashbuckling) focuses on that question, and pares down the complex tale to crystal clarity. JA
Follies, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, through Nov. 13. Director Gary Griffin scores again staging Sondheim for CST with a intimately staged and musically rich rendition of Broadway’s classic 1971 musical that insightfully shows the disillusionment of youthful dreams and the pitfalls of nostalgia. SCM
Old Times, Strawdog Theatre, through Nov. 12. Michaela Petro sizzles in everything she does and John Henry Roberts is the accelerant (as Abigail Boucher is the fuel) to the fire in Harold Pinter’s sexy treatise on the power of re-inventing elusive memories. MSB
A Touch of the Poet, Artistic Home at Stage 773, through Nov. 6. The cozy studio in the freshly-rehabbed Stage 773 receives a worthy inauguration in this superbly-crafted production of Eugene O’Neill’s salute to the Irish immigrant experience and the price of upward mobility. SCM
—By Abarbanel, Barnidge
and Morgan