Gawky 35-year-old astrophysicist Felix Humble (Daren Scott) returns home for his father’s funeral to find his overbearing mother Flora (Rosina Reynolds) about to marry longtime friend and neighbor, the boorish George Pye (Jim Chovick).

George has never been a Felix favorite. What makes the approaching merger even more distressing is Felix’s abruptly terminated fling with George’s daughter Rosie (Jessica John) some 7 years earlier.

If this sounds ever so slightly familiar, it should: Charlotte Jones’ Humble Boy takes Hamlet as a starting point/inspiration for this family comedy, which plays through Nov. 11 at New Village Arts Theatre in Carlsbad. Kristianne Kurner directs.

Played on Francis Gercke’s gorgeous English garden set, Humble Boy is full of quirky characters and peculiar situations. Felix is an odd bird who communicates better with the bees his biology teacher father James kept than with the human species. Lost in his research to discover “the theory of everything,” Felix spends extraordinary amounts of time looking for exactly the right word (a trait some politicians might consider adopting), frequently stutters when upset, and generally gives the impression of wishing to be elsewhere.

He wrangles often with the autocratic and self-involved Flora, recent recipient of a nose job, who now complains that “I don’t think my face lives up to it” and admits to being “in a state of terminal disappointment.” Between his acid-tongued mother and the failed Rosie fling, it’s small wonder Felix has stayed away from home for 7 years.

George’s behavior is sometimes embarrassing (at one point he even pees in the beehive), but his excitement at finally being allowed to court Flora openly is infectious – especially when he breaks into dance (“It’s something when your child tells you to turn the music down,” he notes). This is some of Chovick’s best work to date.

Rosie is no suicidal Ophelia. A nurse and single mother (she informs Felix that he is the father of her daughter), she is seductive, down-to-earth, and probably the sanest member of either family.

Mercy Lott (Dana Case), Flora’s long-suffering friend, is a bit dotty, but means well and has a terrific scene in which she addresses a hilarious monologue to God.

Jim the gardener (Tom Deak) appears now and again, providing a relatively sane character for Felix to talk to.

Humble Boy is quick, clever and wonderfully cast (Reynolds and Scott are riveting), and though you may walk out wondering what it was really about, you won’t be consulting your watch along the way.

Humble Boy plays through Nov. 11 at New Village Arts Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday at 3 and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call (769) 433-3245 or visit www.NewVillageArts.org.

Those four blue-collar bums from Jersey, with the voices and sound that anchored a generation in the early ’60s, are back home, with a high-powered, high-energy show that brings an audience to its feet more reliably than any I’ve ever seen.

Jersey Boys plays through Nov. 11 at Civic Theatre, under the auspices of Broadway San Diego.

Jersey Boys had its world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse in 2004 with Des McAnuff directing. It became the biggest hit ever for the Playhouse, and went on to win four Tonys on Broadway, where it is still packing houses. In addition to this touring cast, the show has just opened in Chicago, one will open later in London and a theater in Las Vegas is being readied for what will probably become a permanent show.

Why all the excitement?

Concert musicals are all the rage now, but Jersey Boys has gone way past that and into the realm of a cultural phenom. One reason is that Jersey Boys has something the others of the genre I’ve seen do not: a terrific book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice that gives just enough history to make the audience care as much about these four guys as about their music.

Then there’s the cast: Deven May is terrific as petty criminal Tommy DeVito, the tough guy founder of the oft-renamed group that eventually became The Four Seasons.

Christopher Kale Jones has the requisite power and impossibly high falsetto for Frankie Valli, though on opening night he had a rather nasal tone in the lower register.

Local product Steve Gouveia does right by the quiet Nick Massi, who unexpectedly quit one night. Erich Bergen is excellent as the tall, geeky songwriter Bob Gaudio, who gave the group such hits as “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Short Shorts” and the mega-hit that always brings down the house, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”

And let’s not slight the stagecraft: Klara Zieglerova’s large industrial set with stairs and lots of set pieces that move in and out and revolve warrants recognition, as does Howell Binkley’s enormously effective lighting design and the terrific musicians.

Jersey Boys is a juggernaut. Don’t miss it, nor forget that “after it all dropped away, there was the music.”

Jersey Boys plays through Nov. 11 at Civic Theatre. Shows Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 1 and 6 p.m.; matinee Saturday at 2 p.m. For tickets call (888) 937-8995 or visit www.broadwaysd.com.

Look, it’s a rush-rush world out there. Hardly anybody has time to read the classics, let alone the Good Book with all those funny words.

But fear not. Here to make your life easier – and a whole lot funnier – are those bad boys of abridgment, the Reduced Shakespeare Company, with their 90-minute The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged).

“The greatest story ever accepted as fact,” directed by Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, plays through Nov. 11 at San Diego Repertory Theatre.

You remember how the world began: in chaos. Then, after creation and all that stuff, Adam (in this case, two Adams and Eve) show up in fig leaves and bright spotlights. Fortunately, they put clothes on before any audience members flee.

After that, it’s all comedy and song, from God’s “In the Beginning Blues” to “Revelation: the Musical” and its great single, “That’s Armageddon.”

Reduced Shakespeare Company began in California in 1981 as pass-the-hat street theater (just like the San Diego Rep did), performing at such places as Renaissance fairs. Six stage shows, four TV programs and numerous radio shows later, they’ve been seen and heard throughout the world, from California to London, Hong Kong to Israel. For a decade, three of their shows played in London.

There’s a reason for it: these guys are screamingly funny. The Bible spends more time on the Old Testament than the New, which writer/director Martin explains this way: “Anger and vengeance are funnier than love and forgiveness.”

Dominic Conti, Michael Faulkner and Jerry Kernion were in the opening night cast (a fourth, Brent Tubbs, replaces Conti for the remainder of the local run). Faulkner provides most of the instrumental accompaniment on an electronic keyboard, although Kernion plays a mean kazoo. Conti’s tall and thin, so he got to play the women.

San Diego theatergoers may recall the RCS’s hilarious All the Great Books (abridged), which played at the Rep in 2003. The Bible is every bit as funny. With luck, maybe we’ll eventually get to see the whole canon.

The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) plays through Nov. 11 at San Diego Repertory Theatre. Shows Wednesday and Sunday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinee Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call (619) 544-1000 or visit www.sandiegorep.com.