Woody’s [rating:5]

“Hir,” a gender-bending, tragicomic world premiere at the Magic Theatre, is the best Bay Area play I’ve seen this season.

In several seasons, in fact.

And I’ve attended more than a few magnificent shows during that timeframe.

To call “Hir” hilariously riveting would be to understate enormously the impact it had on the opening night San Francisco audience.

Including me.

I don’t have enough superlatives in my word-arsenal with which to praise the writing, direction, acting, set design and costumes.

Describing what’s what may make the play sound bizarre rather than funny. But playwright Taylor Mac keeps the laughter level extremely high.

Niegel Smith is the perfect director for what Mac calls “absurd realism.” Though every gag line draws a laugh, each stammer, brief pause or elongated silence also hits a dramatic bulls-eye.

And Smith’s pacing is spot on.

Paige is the antithesis of the submissive mom that populates so much pop culture. Instead, she’s a tear-down-the-established-routine demon who humiliates her husband with acts of comeuppance that include squirting water into his face as a trainer might to a disobedient kitten.

Nancy Opel portrays her with all the requisite venom. A Tony-nominated actress, she is a comic delight, spewing Mac’s acerbic words like ammo from a Gatling gun.

She informs us the family’s role now — 30 years after building its “starter house” — is to put on shadow-puppet shows and “play dress up.”

The playwright takes dysfunctionality to new heights. Or, perhaps, it might be more accurate to say new lows.

The play, set in a central valley suburb similar to Stockton, where Mac grew up, makes the audience feel good because their fractured families can’t possibly be that screwed up.

Jax Jackson adroitly plays Max, formerly Maxine — a 17-year-old “gender-queer” malcontent who’s been homeschooled and makes Holden Caulfield’s angst look as antiquated and simplistic as something out of a the old-time radio soap opera “One Man’s Family.”

He no longer chooses to be a she or a he but a gender-neutral ze (pronounced zay); in addition, he substitutes hir (pronounced heer) for the pronouns him or her.

A youth whose fantasy is to join an anarchist commune, Max finds his mind somewhere behind the curve of the hormone-triggered gender changes ze has put hir body through with self-medicating experimentation.

He calls himself “transmasculine” and “a fag.” He likes boys. He loves masturbating.

And he thinks he’s “allowed to be selfish because I’m in transition.”

Max goes ballistic about the biblical story of Noah being “transphobic” because only male and female animals were allowed aboard the ark — and because Leonardo da Vinci’s transexuality and that of his self-portrait, the Mona Lisa, aren’t acknowledged.

Actually, it’s not crucial for a theatergoer to “get” all the gender-based phrasing — or even the alphabet soup LGBT has evolved into, LGBTTSQQIAA.

The gist becomes clear through context.

Clear, too, is Mark Anderson Phillips’s performance despite his character barely speaking.

He skillfully portrays Arnold, the stroke-ridden ex-plumber, ex-abuser father who represents a disintegrating culture and who’s typically plopped in front of the Lifetime Channel when Paige and Max go out.

And Ben Euphrat is effectively transparent as Isaac, a Marine vet of the Afghanistan war dishonorably discharged after becoming a meth addict. He may have PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), and vomits profusely, the aftermath of his job of collecting body parts.

Isaac comes back to unrecognizable home and family, and desperately wants to restore them — and himself — to the way everything was when he left.

I missed “The Lily’s Revenge,” Mac’s earlier allegorical play/carnival at the Magic, thinking neither my brain nor my buttocks could handle five acts and five hours no matter how brilliant.

Now I have regrets.

Mac, not incidentally, is a triple threat: Although he’s written 16 full-length plays, he also performs as an actor and singer-songwriter (his most recent outing was as co-star with Mandy Patinkin in an off-Broadway workshop of “The Last Two People on Earth: An Apocalyptic Vaudeville” last December).

While introducing his latest dark, darker, darkest humor showcase to the opening night audience, Loretta Greco, the Magic’s producing artistic director, said, “Buckle your seat belts. You’re in for an incredible ride.”

She wasn’t lying.

“Hir” plays at the Magic Theater, Building D, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, through March 2. Performances: Sundays and Tuesdays, 7 p.m., Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; matinees, Sundays and Wednesdays, 2:30 p.m. Tickets: $15 to $60. Information: (415) 441-8822 or www.magictheatre.org.

  Woody’s [rating:5]

Uh, oh!

From the first cagey moments of “Gidion’s Knot,” I knew the play would be grueling to process.

I didn’t, however, expect my mouth to drop open, my heart to hurt.

They did anyway.

My pledge: Because the two-woman play is a disturbing cat-and-mouse game and theatrical Rorschach test, viewers will find it virtually impossible to leave the Aurora Theatre in Berkeley unaffected.

Personal baggage will, of course, determine exactly how and what is experienced.

The tension-filled drama starts with an abrasive, in-your-face single mother — a walking open wound — demanding a constrained teacher tell her why she suspended the parent’s troubled son from his fifth-grade class.

The discussion that follows is often awkward.

But it’s also a fascinating examination of personal responsibility and blame, freedom of expression, the failure of our school systems, bullying and embryonic sexuality.

“Gidion’s Knot” is provocative, powerful and guaranteed to force theatergoers to hold their breath for what seems its entire 80 minutes.

The impact of the gut-wrenching, twist-and-turn tragedy comes when the angry, sarcastic mother, herself a professor used to academic probing, keeps pricking and questioning until she learns the truth.

At least her truth.

A working clock on a classroom wall helps maintain the sense of real time.

And the actors’ breathtaking depiction of passion, thoughtfulness and mood swings help keep the action authentic.

Playwright Johnna Adams demands playgoers think for themselves, so she supplies no pinpoint answers to the questions she poses: Are parents or schoolteachers ultimately responsible for pupils’ well-being? Is Gidion a bullying monster or sensitive, poetic victim? Is classmate Jake the bully or an object of affection?

Neither fifth grader appears on stage.

Nor does Seneca, an 11-year-old friend and note-passer described as having a stuffed bra, nose ring, false eyelashes and dyed platinum hair.

Tossed into the mix are references to censorship, freedom of expression, American society’s litigiousness, and our growing national fear of what’s ahead.

Sadly, “Gidion’s Knot” echoes all too many real-life headlines of recent years about individual tragedies caused by taunting, either in person or through social networking.

And, although it doesn’t reference those situations, it can’t block memories of schoolyard massacres.

Tension is director Jon Tracy’s forté, copious enough to make me — and most other seat-holders — uncomfortable.

Intensity prevails.

Unrelentingly, in fact, all the way to the play’s final moments — except for a few snarky quips that let everyone find a smidgeon of relief through nervous laughter.

Part of the unease, by the way, stems from the two characters (and audience) waiting for someone to arrive.

As “Gidion’s Knot” unravels its multi-leveled conflicts and complexities — from an exploration of Greek and Roman military history and epic poetry to a tale of revenge against teachers and disembowelment — it may require a strong stomach.

I could hear erratic gasps in the audience.

Nina Ball’s set is a deceptively cheery contrast through which she’d dragged me into a 20-desk classroom and its reference maps and academic materials in Anytown, USA.

The setting’s so effective I could almost see the portraits of gods tacked onto an invisible wall explored by the distraught mom, who reveals she could best relate to a demon-destroying Hindu god, Shiva.

Destruction just happens to be another underlying theme of “Gidion’s Knot.

So’s the Marquis de Sade.

Then, of course, there’s the metaphoric Gordian Knot, which — legend tells us — Alexander the Great decided to slice rather than untie. The phrase, of course, has become a means of representing having to face an intractable problem.

What’s absent in this dazzling play is artifice — despite the presence of polemics and diatribes.

What’s present is actors whose performances are flawlessly multi-layered, facilitating my feeling their respective pain.

I flinched as the mother asked disingenuously, “This doesn’t have to be adversarial, does it?”

But the sold-out audience was right there as the mother, Corryn Fell (Jamie J. Jones), and teacher, Heather Clark (Stacy Ross), struggled to untangle the web of what really happened.

Where a playgoer travels emotionally and intellectually will determine whether “Gidion’s Knot” is loved or tagged offensive and too harrowing.

I fall in the first niche, glad I was there despite the work required.

The opening night crowd also had no doubt: In unison, it gave it a thunderous standing ovation.

“Gidion’s Knot” runs at the Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison St., Berkeley, through March 9. Night performances, Wednesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m., Tuesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $16-$50. Information: www.auroratheatre.orgor (510) 843-4822.

 Woody’s [rating:5]

“Man in a Case,” the new Mikhail Baryshnikov star turn, melds uncountable elements.

Radiantly.

But the dramatic Berkeley Rep re-invention of two Anton Chekhov short stories is so complex, so augmented with symbolism and stagecraft, I’m sure a single viewing is insufficient to absorb it all.

And, frankly, I suspect I might feel the same after two or three more times in the audience.

“Man in a Case,” which was adapted and co-directed by the dazzling duo behind the Big Dance Theatre, Paul Lazar and Annie-B Parson, fuses movement, theatrics, music and video.

Parson may deserve the most credit.

She alone was responsible for the piece’s choreography, which not only fit Baryshnikov’s dance and acting chops like skintight leggings but lent itself to integrating disparate elements — projections of titles and 1890s Russian characters re-dressed in modern garb, a quintet of TV terminals blinking in unison, infinite paper caricatures wafting from above, a strobe ball rotating ever so gently, accordion melodies blaring in contrast with scratchy old recordings, and a canopied Murphy bed sliding effortlessly into a wall.

Amazingly, like a perfectly practiced drill team, everything works in synch.

And Parson put it all together with a surrealistic cleverness that made me think she might have been channeling Salvador Dali after he’d stumbled upon Marcel Marceau and Spike Jones in the afterlife and convinced them to come back to Earth and pool their talents.

“Man in a Case” spotlights two modern-day hunters who swap poignant stories after initially wielding their microphones like comic weaponry, as if they were doing early morning drive-time radio.

The first — and longer — tale centers on Belikov, an uptight, reclusive Greek teacher who’s feared by his fellow pedagogues — and, indeed, “the whole town.” He falls for a cheery woman but, calamitously, can’t sustain the relationship.

The second story depicts a guy who grieves for his unrequited love, a married woman.

According to Parson, both Baryshnikov protagonists “have preconceived ideas how to live, even if it means living life in a case…of their own construction.”

She also said, in an interview with the Hartford Stage’s senior dramaturg, that even though the title piece is “prose, not a play, it’s eminently actable.”

Baryshnikov, who’d grown up reading Chekhov stories and plays, validates that notion.

And so do the other six actors in the ensemble cast, especially Tymberly Canale, his dance-and-love companion in both segments.

One stagey conceit of “Man in a Case” is showing onstage what normally goes on behind the scenes. It took me a few minutes to adjust to the “transparency,” but once I had, I found it refreshing.

Exactly what were the two co-directors trying to achieve?

Lazar has said, “It’s Chekhov’s unvarnished contemporary quality and his not feeling at an historical distance that we’re going after.”

Mission accomplished.

Baryshnikov, a Latvia native, started studying ballet at age 9. He became the principal dancer of the Kirov Ballet in 1969, and five years later defected from the former Soviet Union to dance with major companies around the world.

His film work has included “The Turning Point” and “White Nights,” and he appeared in “Metamorphosis” on Broadway.

His most famous role, however, may have been in the television series “Sex in the City,” in which he’s dumped by Carrie Bradshaw for Mr. Big.

In 2012, Baryshnikov starred in the Berkeley Rep  production of “In Paris,” a tragic love story that garnered only mixed reviews. He’d sunk $250,000 of his own money into the project.

Although the actor-dancer recently turned 65, he’s been quoted as saying, “I never celebrate my birthdays. I really don’t care.”

He also said: “Your body actually reminds you about your age and your injuries — the body has a stronger memory than your mind.”

Does his body hold up as he effectively makes the leap from one Chekhov short story to the other?

Absolutely.

Last year, Baryshnikov told the Washington Post, “I have been in successful productions sometimes. And I’ve sucked many times, too.”

Hey, Misha, there’s zero suckage this time.

“Man in a Case” plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre‘s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through Feb. 16. Night performances, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays, 7 p.m. Matinees, Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $22.50 to $125, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.

 Woody’s [rating:5]

If you’ve seen one acrobatic troupe, you’ve seen ‘em all — except, perhaps, for an occasional act in Cirque du Soleil.

Or every one of The Peking Acrobats.

I caught the latest rendition of the latter at a Cal Performances matinee the other day at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley.

It was fabulous.

Basing their work on folk traditions that date back to 221 B.C., the youngsters push their balancing and gymnastics beyond anyone’s expectations.

Fabulously.

And the Jigu! Thunder Drums of China company that’s been inserted into the tour for the first time as “special guests” also are fabulous.

The dexterous acrobatic troupe, which first came to the United States in 1986 and currently features performers ranging from 13 to 25, particularly enjoys defying gravity.

And contorting lithe bodies.

And risking youthful life and limb without a net.

Some of the acts are indescribably complex. To be believed, they must be witnessed. Despite seeing them with my own big brown eyes, I still found several unbelievable.

Being human, the acrobats are not perfect. But when they err, they do it again and inevitably get it right.

The showstopper clearly was a young man who put four wine bottles on a tabletop, then carefully balanced the first of eight white chairs on them. After he stacked high the other seven and was almost into the rafters, he performed three handstands, the last on one hand.

Extraordinary. Inspired. Breathtaking.

And fabulous.

His solo was followed by five girls balancing on the same six chairs, stacked not as high but maybe even more treacherously because they were diagonal.

Before the stunning finale, which featured almost a dozen performers perched delicately on a single bicycle, the combination visual-audial cornucopia provided so much more, most of it unique:

A guy who juggled while standing on one leg and while tap dancing on two, a clown who tripled as emcee and tumbler, stunningly choreographed gymnastics and dancing and drumsticks, a young man who stuck four bricks on his head so they could be smashed with an immense hammer, a man held mid-air on the points of four spears, and a lion dance with four dragon-like critters animated by eight males.

Plus, of course, acrobats who jumped from pole to pole, others who danced gracefully on long fabric, females who spun plates while twisting their bodies every which way, foot-jugglers who rotated drums, and a group that playfully juggled hats, hats and more hats.

The center-stage and background music was unusually wide-ranging, from booming synchronized drumming to almost eerie sounds emanating from traditional Chinese instruments such as the erhu, a small bowed instrument with only two strings, and the yangquin, a dulcimer played with bamboo mallets.

Most melodies were unfamiliar, but that didn’t hold true for a medley that included Tony Orlando and Dawn’s “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” and the Beatles’ “Yesterday.”

The audience, which mainly consisted of young children and bald men, presumably fathers of the kids, applauded everything.

I’d say the crowd found The Peking Acrobats, well, fabulous.

“Calm down,” squeals the moderation-safety valve in my head. “This review’s become an over-gush.” But I can’t help myself — individually and collectively, they’re that good.

A cautionary announcement before the two-hour-plus fast-paced show told us not to try the tricks at home.

For me, that message was unnecessary.

I’m neither double-jointed nor willing to risk breaking every bone in my body.

In case you missed “The Peking Acrobats,” Cal Performances offers other excellent choices for families. Try, for example, Aesop Bops!” with David Gonzalez and the Yak Yak Band on April 6. Information: (510) 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu/.