Seat Filler

Vieux Carré
Audaciously directed by Elizabeth LeCompte, the Wooster Group’s exhilarating revival uses experimental artistry to uncover the cigarette-stained soul of this 1977 Tennessee Williams flop. As the gay writer in a seedy 1930s New Orleans boardinghouse, a terrific jockstrap-clad Ari Fliakos interacts with a violent young stud and a tubercular gay letch, neighbors both played by Scott Shepherd, with a strap-on highlighting the ugliness of lust.
Jerome Robbins Theater at Baryshnikov Arts Center, through March 13.

A Perfect Future
Starring Donna Bullock and Jeffrey’s Michael T. Weiss as unstable couple Natalie and John, David Hay’s engaging, darkly comic drama puts a compelling racial-political twist on Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? replacing Nick and Honey with a gay fix-up: Daniel Oreskes as a friend from their days as college radicals and Scott Drummond as a young guy from John’s firm. As they open expensive bottles of wine, hideous true colors shine.
Cherry Lane Theatre, through March 6.