Playwright: Jessica Thebus

adapted from Shakespeare

At: Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Navy Pier

Tickets: 312-595-5600;

http://www.chicagoshakes.com/feast;

$35-$45

Runs through: March 11

The Hunchback, Variations Opera

Playwright: Mickle Maher and Mark Messing

At: Theatre Oobleck at

Victory Gardens Theater

Tickets: 773-71-3000;

http://www.victorygardens.org;

$20 ( suggested; free if you're broke )

Runs through: Feb. 19

Two consistently rad theater troupes have mounted brief, small-cast shows inspired by the classics in vastly different ways. Redmoon Theatre, partnering with Chicago Shakespeare Theater at Navy Pier, deconstructs Shakespeare's final play, The Tempest. Theatre Oobleck has taken ensemble member Mickle Maher's thoughtful comedy, The Hunchback Variations, and refashioned it as two-person chamber opera. The pieces have nothing in common other than unusual approaches to subject matter and the vast artistic experience of the artists involved.

Redmoon reduces the living actors to Prospero, the sorcerer/duke shanghaied on a tropical island, and the two island creatures who are his servants, Ariel and Caliban. All others—among them his daughter and her love interest, Prospero's usurping brother and a drunken butler—are puppets, masks or shadow projections, which are familiar Redmoon techniques. The 75-minute performance reduces the story to expository minimums with many details narrated rather than fully acted out. A chief question must be whether those unfamiliar with The Tempest fully will understand the tale and its lessons. Shakespeare's message of mercy and forgiveness remains but it seems like a moral add-on rather than emerging organically from story and character.

Nonetheless, The Feast: An Intimate Tempest offers an intriguing reality check. The technique of masks and puppets makes one wonder if they are to be taken as real or as creations of Prospero's mind? Is he mad? Is anyone there besides Ariel and Caliban? And when he frees Ariel at the end, he equally frees Caliban ( which is not the case in Shakespeare's original ) as if they are ( a ) brothers or ( b ) two aspects of one creature. These ideas might offer a new interpretation of The Tempest if they were more fully explored rather than merely suggested.

It's a handsome production—Chicago Shakespeare Theater's hallmark—and delicately crafted, a Redmoon hallmark. Spectacle and sound weave a spell and the three actors ( plus one unseen puppeteer ) successfully balance vocal and physical strength against nuance.

The clever premise of The Hunchback Variations is to have two men who are stone-cold deaf expound on the nature of sound, "impossible, mysterious sound ... and its effects on life and friendship," as one says. In so doing, they examine the nature of creative inquiry and myriad metaphysical issues. But author Maher doesn't stop there: his two deaf experts are real composer/pianist Beethoven, and fictional medieval bell ringer, Quasimodo. Presented as modern figures, they offer their sound opinions in public discussions seated before microphones. Maher adds further complexity by jumping off from a puzzling sound effect in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard.

Nearly a decade old, Maher's play has been set to music by Mark Messing with tenor George Andrew Wolff ( Beethoven ) and baritone Larry Adams accompanied by cellist Paul Ghica and pianist Tim Lenihan. Messing respect for Maher's words ( the play, intact ) , diction and humor is absolute. He subtly lets the personalities emerge of the charmingly devious Beethoven and the grumpy but heartfelt Quasimodo. The music often is free in form and rhythm, although I noticed several fine 3/4-times variations and numerous jazz hints. The cello part seems especially challenging, with much of it plucked rather than bowed. Only in the closing moments does Messing eschew dry tonalities to briefly embrace a recognizably diatonic, anthem-like melody, thereby rounding out with a sentiment this successful marriage of words and music.

More than anything, perhaps, Maher's work explores enigma. In a way, so does the Redmoon/Chicago Shakes version of The Tempest, perhaps challenging our perception of reality.