Playwright: Sally Dawidoff, adptd from Ha Jin Director: Gary Graves Drama $15-$28 5/15-6/22

When the venerable Professor Yang, a teacher of literature at a provincial Chinese university, has a stroke, his prize student Jian Wan is assigned to care for him. But when the professor begins to rave like a madman, the student is thrown into a quandary: Are these the outpourings of a crazed mind, or is Yang speaking the truth—about life, about art, about Chairman Mao?

Tickets and info: centralworks.org; (510) 558-1381

Caption: Carina Lastimosa Salazar and Will Dao. Photo: Jim Norrena.