Seat Filler: NYC Theater Guide for February 2012

The Ugly One
Popular German playwright Marius von Mayenburg’s 2007 black comedy is a surreal, zippy firecracker of a satire. Good-looking actor Alfredo Narciso stars as Lette, an ugly man who, upon discovering that he’s ugly, undergoes successful plastic surgery that inspires scores of other men to buy the exact same irresistibly handsome face. Steven Boyer is a standout as a lustful gay man who’s as attracted to Lette as Lette is to himself.
Soho Rep, through February 26.

Yosemite
Private Romeo’s Seth Numrich is a ticking time bomb as the eldest of three poor siblings sent by their unstable gun-toting mother into the snowy woods to dig a hole deep enough to bury their neglected baby brother. Unfortunately, despite the very impressive onstage digging and some devastatingly beautiful writing by Slipping’s Daniel Talbott, the thin plot quickly grows tiresome once the cat’s out of the bag that it’s not a cat in that bag.
Rattlestick Theater, through March 3.

Merrily We Roll Along
The legendary James Lapine directed a bittersweet and stirring City Center Encores! production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s revised 1981 Broadway flop about the deteriorating friendship of three writers. The semistaged mounting’s success bodes well for a major revival of the cult favorite, which unfolds in reverse. The 2012 Encores! continues with Pipe Dream and Smash’s Megan Hilty in Gentleman Prefer Blondes.
New York City Center, closed February 19.