Last Chance

Theater

Side Show--The title of this play is appropriately double-layered. The musical’s protagonists, Daisy and Violet, are forever side by side, as Siamese twins joined at the hip. And they’re discovered in a tawdry Depression-era side show. In the course of the musical, they join classier show business circles, yet they learn that it’s impossible to fully transcend their roots.

Daisy and Violet are presented as individuals who must cope with the elusive concepts of how to define themselves and their ties to other human beings. These are not esoteric subjects. The women’s position is a metaphor for universal human concerns. However, we soon learn that they have issues dividing them. Daisy wants to be famous; Violet wants a husband and children. Librettist-lyricist Bill Russell tells their story simply, allowing the ironies and the larger metaphor to emerge without forcing the issue.

Don Shirley

*

Ends Sunday at the Colony Theatre Company, 555 N. 3rd St., Burbank, (818) 558-7000.

Also closing this weekend:

Futon Dialogues and The Interview--Dark, elliptical and challenging one-acts by Hank Butler in a shrewd, staging by the Full Stop Collective. They close Sunday at the Salvation Theatre, 1519 Griffith Park, L.A., (323) 807-0101.

The Blue Room--David Hare’s round robin of vignettes about sexual and emotional subterfuge, given an aggressively stylized direction by David Schweizer, ends Sunday at the Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Ave., Pasadena, (626) 356-7529.

Funny Girl--The musical about Ziegfeld star Fanny Brice by Isobel Lennart, Jule Styne and Bob Merrill ends Sunday at the Grove, 276 E. 9th St., Upland, (909) 920-4343.

Grease--The 1950s-style rock ‘n’ roll musical, with Kim Huber (Belle in the national tour of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast”) and stage and film veteran Barry Pearl, ends Sunday at La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, (562) 944-9801, (714) 994-6310.