HIGH MARX

A specter is haunting Alabama—the specter of Communism. In Things of Dry Hours, playwright Naomi Wallace returns to the period of the Great Depression, last visited in The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek, and ensconces herself in the cabin of Tice, an African-American unemployed Sunday-school teacher, and his widowed daughter, Cali. While Cali does menial work for white neighbors, Tice devotes himself to his Bible and his copy of the Communist Manifesto. When a white fugitive arrives on their doorstep, a battle of race, sex, politics, and loyalty ensues. Delroy Lindo, Roslyn Ruff, and Garret Dillahunt star—with director Ruben Santiago-Hudson honoring the Marxist principle of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Wednesdays-Fridays, 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 3 & 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 & 7 p.m.; Tuesdays, 7 p.m. Starts: May 22. Continues through June 28, 2009