Harvey Fierstein continues the by-now firmly entrenched tradition of San Diego-to-Broadway productions with A Catered Affair, extended through Nov. 11 at the Old Globe Theatre. John Doyle directs.

Fierstein rewrote the plot from the flawed 1956 Bette Davis film of the same name, added John Bucchino’s music and is trying the product here before its April opening in New York.

The result, I’m sorry to report, is not up to Broadway standards. Maybe the problem is that this catered affair has been through too many incarnations (Paddy Chayevsky wrote the original teleplay, Gore Vidal the screenplay; now Fierstein writes the book). Or, perhaps the topic is old-fashioned and thus inherently less than fascinating. It doesn’t help that Fierstein isn’t much of a singer and can barely make himself understood when he talks.

The plot is simple enough. Set in the Bronx in 1953, the question at hand is whether Tom and Agnes Hurley (Tom Wopat and Faith Prince), a hardworking Irish Catholic couple, should spend all their financial capital on the lavish wedding they never had for daughter Janey (Leslie Kritzer).

Janey has a definite answer: No! She and boyfriend Ralph (Matt Cavenaugh) have just agreed to marry at city hall and take a honeymoon drive to California in the car of a now-married friend who wants the vehicle delivered to her new California home. That’s okay with Tom, who wanted to put his little nest egg into joint ownership of a cab.

But Aggie, barely recovered from the death of Janey’s brother in the Korean War and suffering in the doldrums of what she considers a loveless marriage, wants to expiate her own guilt and unhappiness with a big to do for her only daughter. Aggie wins, at least for a while, and many of the usual horrors of wedding planning are explored (“It’s all about choices,” says the caterer).

Fierstein has written himself in as Janey’s gay uncle, who first kvetches that the “immediate family only” proscription means he will not be invited to city hall, and then that nobody listens to his food suggestions for the wedding dinner.

On the upside, A Catered Affair boasts a terrific cast, most of it made up of Broadway veterans, all fine actors. David Gallo’s set design is clever and in motion much of the time (watch for the exits of the stove and refrigerator), and Anne Hould-Ward’s costumes appropriate.

Fierstein reportedly wanted to avoid remaking a terrific vehicle and so selected this decidedly problematic script, making it even less attractive with comedy-to-drama tone shifts such as Aggie’s loveless-marriage subplot setting up the “it’s better to be married than not” message. It all feels tired and sort of silly.

These defects could have been overlooked with a great score. Alas, Bucchino’s music is treacly and tuneless, recitative rather than melody, not of the sort that will inspire you to leave the theater humming.

This affair needs a better caterer.

A Catered Affair plays through Nov. 11, at the Old Globe Theatre. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 7 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 619-23-GLOBE or visit www.theoldglobe.org.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as the saying goes, and Medea (Monique Gaffney) feels herself about as scorned as they come.

This passionate “barbarian” princess left behind everyone and everything she knew to follow her Greek lover Jason (John DeCarlo) to Corinth, where she knew no one and didn’t understand customs, history or language. But she has played the perfect wife, even borne him two sons.

Now she is being dumped for a Greek princess, and she is mad. Furious, in fact, so furious that when Creon (Steven Jenson), king of Corinth and father of the princess in question, comes to visit, she is nasty to him, causing him to banish her and her children from his city.

Surprised but thinking quickly, she begs him for 24 hours to figure out where to go. Against his better judgment, he grants her request, which allows her time to plan the nefarious scheme for which she is world renowned.

Ruff Yeager directs Marianne McDonald’s splendid translation of Euripides’ Medea through Nov. 11 at 6th@Penn Theatre.

Love and betrayal, passion and hatred, murder and misery – Euripides gives us human nature writ large and a situation not uncommon today. McDonald’s lovely translation – smooth, accessible, modern without being slangy – brings Euripides even closer.

Yeager has assembled a fine cast. The women are particularly strong, headed by the always-reliable Gaffney as Medea, seething with rage but able to play the sympathetic victim for the men in her life long enough to accomplish her bloody goals. Nurse (Darlene Clary) rightly fears for her boss’ sanity, but is helpless to stop her. Clary and Allison Finn’s Chorus let the audience in on the inevitability of tragedy, while the oblivious Jason tries to convince Medea he’s only thinking of the children (the bride’s money will ensure they want for nothing but mom).

Innovation in theater is often a good thing, but Yeager’s staging gets in the way of the emotional experience. He’s opted for a sort of faux Noh approach with a white palette and the Messenger decked in Japanese robes. Medea, on the other hand, wears a white nightgown-look dress with visible modern brown bra straps. Yeager uses video projections for lines that I would have preferred be clearly spoken, and for images of Medea’s children, who have not been cast. Their delivery of Medea’s gift – a fatal gold dress – to the new bride is relegated to video projection. The Chorus sits in the front row of the audience. Medea pounds her fists and later does a wild, African-inspired dance.

There’s nothing wrong with any of these, but each was puzzling, taking me out of the play and into a “why?” reverie that lessened, rather than heightened, the desired emotional impact.

Still, Euripides speaks to us as clearly and forcefully as he did to the ancients, and Medea is a cautionary tale we should all see and heed.

Medea plays through Nov. 11 at 6th@Penn Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call (619) 688-9210 or visit www.sixthatpenn.com.

Oscar Wilde, arguably the best known homosexual of the late 19th century, enjoyed skewering Victorian society in general and the upper class in particular. Best known for The Importance of Being Earnest (subtitled “a trivial play for serious people”), Wilde wrote eight plays and is best remembered for four.

Lamb’s Players Theatre presents a stunning production of Wilde’s penultimate play An Ideal Husband through Nov. 18, directed by Kerry Meads.

In An Ideal Husband, the lives of a particular group of idle rich are disrupted by the arrival of one Mrs. Cheveley (Deborah Gilmour Smyth), a British ex-pat living in Vienna, who comes to request of House of Commons member Sir Robert Chiltern (Robert Smyth) a particular action which will redound to her financial advantage.

Mrs. Cheveley, knowing Robert will refuse at first, tries to blackmail him with embarrassing evidence of a less than ethical action in the past that could quite undo him. From there, twists and turns lead to amusing exchanges, the unmasking of hypocrisies and a happy conclusion. Along the way, some of Wilde’s most endearing lines keep the audience laughing. This one, for example, has the ring of timeliness: “If you did make a clean breast of the whole affair, you would never be able to talk morality again. And in England a man who can’t talk morality twice a week for a large, popular immoral audience is quite over as a serious politician.”

And this, from Lady Markby (played with relish by Steve Gunderson): “Dining at home by yourselves? Is that quite prudent? Ah, I forgot, your husband is an exception. Mine is the general rule, and nothing ages a woman so rapidly as having married the general rule.”

I am privileged to see many fine local productions, but this comes closer to perfection than any in recent memory. The acting is outstanding all around, not only from those previously mentioned but also from Season Duffy, Jillian Frost, Glynn Bedington, Patrick Duffy, Jon Lorenz and Colleen Kollar Smith.

Mike Buckley’s terrifically clever set is fabulous, as are the music and choreography when the set is changed. Jeanne Reith, resident costume goddess, outdoes herself again with spectacular gowns and bonnets for the ladies – and doesn’t slight the gentlemen, either.

Wilde would be pleased.

An Ideal Husband plays through Nov. 18 at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado. Shows Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday at 4 and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call (619) 437-0600 or visit lambsplayers.org.