THEATER BEAT

If you think that getting in touch with your inner primitive is the ideal antidote to the sterility of modern civilization, San Francisco-based playwright Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s “Hunter Gatherers” urges you to reconsider. In a razor-sharp staging from Furious Theatre Company, Nachtrieb’s bitingly hilarious black comedy spares neither savages nor saints as a polite dinner party devolves into an orgy of pent-up rage, sex and bloodshed.

An exotic gourmet meal is the annual tradition with which two 35-year-old couples celebrate their enduring friendship, but this year chef Richard (Doug Newell) has taken foodie obsession with the freshest ingredients to new extremes. Perched over a large cardboard box in the center of their upscale urban loft, butcher’s knife in hand, he coaxes his reluctant wife, Pam (Sara Hennessy), to help him slaughter the bleating lamb they’ll be serving to Wendy (Vonessa Martin) and Tom (Steven Schub).

This pagan sacrifice is but the opening volley in the escalating mayhem that unfolds after the guests arrive. With abundant irony and well-turned barbs, Nachtrieb’s sharply crafted dialogue follows in Edward Albee’s footsteps, peeling away layers of well-mannered repression and hypocrisy as the foursome succumbs to the basest impulses. In his determination to leave no taboo unviolated, however, the still-maturing playwright is at times seduced by cleverness into outrageous excess at the expense of continuity and coherence, even by the internal logic of this absurdist context.

Damaso Rodriguez’s relentlessly paced staging builds and draws nicely realized characters from the entire cast.

Philip Brandes

“Hunter Gatherers,” Furious Theatre Company at the Pasadena Playhouse Carrie Hamilton Theatre, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena. 8 p.m. Thursdays through Satur- days, 7:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends Feb. 21. $30. (800) 595-4849 or www.furioustheatre.org. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.

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Galvanic, but not shocking ‘Woolf’

In the nearly 50 years since “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” first hit the American theater, many things have changed, though alcohol- fueled spousal mayhem may not be among them. So goes the resolute Blue Zone Productions revival of Edward Albee’s darkly comic marital smackdown.

Blue Zone’s artistic objective -- to demarginalize performers with disabilities -- is admirable. It brings occasional jolts of acrid insight to this Tony-winning groundbreaker. History professor George (Jack Patterson) and boss’ daughter Martha (Ann Colby Stocking) still have at each other and unwitting guests Nick (Paul Haitkin) and Honey (Teal Sherer) during a long night’s journey into day.

Certainly the actors are intense and accomplished under Sara Botsford’s direction. Patterson, who assumed George after “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” regular Robert David Hall withdrew, begins tentatively but gains in authority with each monologue, and Stocking lands Martha’s braying emotional zigzags with crack timing. Sherer finds extra inebriated humor in Honey. Haitkin, the sole non-disabled performer, gives climber Nick more edge than usual.

That said, the approach also creates contradictions. Staging Albee’s blend of naturalism and mega-theatricality with the seductions and assaults circumscribed by artist’s physical realities taxes tempos and suspended disbelief. Whenever the situation confronts the text -- Honey’s interpretive dance, for example -- a striking overview seems possible, but its possibilities aren’t fully explored.

There is much to value in this “Virginia Woolf,” which is always respectable and at times galvanic. There is, however, not much to be afraid of, in part because the play doesn’t shock as it once did.

David C. Nichols

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” NoHo Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends March 1. $20. (323) 960-7711. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.