Rabbit Hole

A child’s death clouds the atmosphere of David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole. Even so, the show shimmers with the very heartbeat of life as it focuses on Becca and Howie, a couple struggling to recover from the death of their son Danny. The husband and wife, along with an aunt and a grandmother, must plow through the dark terrain of grief and guilt as they come together only to move apart in the quiet dance of rituals dealing with the dead — including the packing-up of Danny’s belongings. (When her husband picks up a tiny shoe and momentarily freezes, Becca tells him, “Don’t. Quick and clean, like a Band-Aid. Otherwise, we’d never get through it.”) Ben Brantley of The New York Times said the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “doesn’t so much jerk tears as tap them, from a reservoir of feelings common to anyone who has experienced the landscape-shifting vacuum left by a death in the family.” 3 p.m. Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays. Through March 22. Stages Repertory Theatre, 3201 Allen Parkway. For information, call 713-527-0123 or visit www.stagestheatre.com. $30.

Wednesdays-Sundays. Starts: Feb. 27. Continues through March 15, 2009