Few of us are equipped to handle the death of anyone we know, let alone the accidental death of a child. But an ordinary family has to deal with just this extraordinary pain and loss in Nancy Gilsenan’s stage adaptation of Judith Guest’s novel Ordinary People, now in its local premiere run at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. Jay Mower directs.

The Jarrett family includes mother Beth (Sharon Lawson), elegant, competent, businesslike and emotionally distant; father and successful tax attorney Cal (Peter Frankland), who loves his son deeply but is strangely almost inarticulate about it; and 17-year-old son Conrad (Michael Dean Grulli), who sings in the school choir and has an on-again, off-again relationship with the swim team.

The play begins not with the shock of the event but some two years after a boating accident resulted in the death of Conrad’s older brother Buck, the favorite child and “star” of the family: the trophy-winning swimmer; the one whose personality lit up a room; the one who could make everybody (including his uptight mother) smile.

Family members have tried various coping strategies. Conrad’s inability to process the horrible event gives him nightmares, crying jags and the nagging fear that he is somehow responsible and could have saved his brother if only he’d done more or acted differently. Certain that his mother has never loved him, Con’s desperation led to a suicide attempt, which landed him in the hospital for some months.

Beth chooses flight, electing to throw her time and energy into “the club” and community groups. Cal’s heartbreakingly awkward attempts to soldier on and be there for Con consist of asking how he is every day and encouraging him to seek help from psychiatrist Dr. Berger (Thomas McCaverly).

Readers may recall the 1980 film of Ordinary People starring Mary Tyler Moore, Donald Sutherland and Timothy Hutton. Film is, in fact, a more natural medium for this script, which requires several sets and frequent changes. OnStage tries to solve the problem by putting three sets bang up against each other in a line. This creates more problems than it solves: as clearing sets would be visible to the audience during the next scene, Mower elects to use imaginary props: invisible cups, papers, books. This works for a while, but as time goes on, you begin to wonder if this is a staged reading or an early rehearsal.

Tactical problems aside, Ordinary People is a thought-provoking meditation on grief, love, forgiveness and family dynamics. In this competent cast, McCaverly steals the show as Dr. Berger, the shrink who helps Con confront his demons.

Ordinary People forces us to contemplate the unfairness, capriciousness, unfathomability and sometimes downright rottenness of life. It’s a topic no one wants to think about, but once in a while, we must.

Ordinary People plays through Feb. 9 at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinee Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 619-422-7787 or visit www.onstageplayhouse.org.

I remember a time when every woman’s wardrobe was expected to include a little black dress and a string of pearls.

Black dresses are still seen everywhere, but playwright Michele Lowe got to wondering about those pearls. Out of curiosity, she approached several pearl wearers and asked about them. She found that most had a family history.

Lowe’s String of Pearls, in its local premiere running through Feb. 10 at North Coast Repertory Theatre, takes us on a memory trip back through the decades, owners and events connected with one string of pearls, weaving together the stories of 27 women played by four actresses and covering 35 years of history. Karen Carpenter directs.

This revolving-door play begins when 74-year-old Beth (Kwana Martinez) wants to watch granddaughter Amy (Jennifer Seifert) walk down the aisle with the string of pearls she had given Amy’s mother Linda (Crystal Sershen). But Linda, who died too young of cancer, never bestowed the pearls on Amy. Beth takes it upon herself to track them down.

Beth’s husband Ethan gave them to her after a particularly joyous sexual union that rejuvenated their long marriage. But Ethan suffered an aneurysm before presenting them to her.

The doctors couldn’t revive him, and “I went home with my little bag of Ethan – wallet, glasses, aspirin,” says Beth, “and another bag with a blue box with the pearls in it. I went home, took off my clothes, and got into bed naked except for Ethan’s pearls, and that’s the way I slept for five years.”

Lowe has a way with interesting characters, as those who saw her The Smell of the Kill at North Coast Rep last year can attest. After Beth and Linda, the pearls pass through many hands, including those of an architect-turned-stay-at-home mom, a Tunisian maid in Escondido, a chaperone for the New York City Ballet, a mortician’s assistant, a political consultant in San Diego and a 300-pound lesbian gravedigger in New York. Even a striped bass gets in on the action.

Though this script could easily descend to the maudlin or to the level of a sitcom, it avoids both, thanks to Lowe’s writing, Carpenter’s direction and spectacular performances from all involved.

Carpenter, former assistant director at the Old Globe Theatre, now works in Los Angeles and brought three of her four cast members from up north. Only Yael, veteran of last year’s Dracula, is local. All are excellent, but some of the characters are truly memorable: Martinez’ delicate but amusing description of the night that occasioned the gift of the pearls; Sershen’s ability to find both the sadness behind Dora’s imperious attitude as a ballet chaperone and the vulnerability of plus-size gravedigger Cindy; Seifert’s spunky Amy, joining friends in a joyous impromptu pagan funeral rite; Yael’s portrayal of the exhausted mortician’s assistant Kyle, also taking care of her demanding, aged mother, but always managing to be sure mom gets her favorite doughnut with pink sprinkles.

String of Pearls celebrates women’s journeys – the possibilities, joys, sorrows, and their ability to get through it all with humor and grace.

String of Pearls plays through Feb. 10 at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 and 7 p.m.; select Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. and Saturday matinees at 2 p.m. For tickets call 858-481-1055 or visit www.northcoastrep.org.

Blame it on the pancakes. Poor, put-upon 10-year-old Harry (Max Oilman-Williams) is stuck with two moms, sister Sue (Lirenza Gillette) and Stonewall the singing pointer (Jacob Caltrider), and not one of them understands the importance of pancakes. Harry thinks a dad would get it.

Even so, Mom (Krista Page) and Mama (Susan Hammons) have promised to honor the first day of vacation with pancakes for breakfast. But that all changes when Mama loses a filling and Mom takes her off to an emergency dental appointment, asking Harry to settle for cereal, but promising pancakes for lunch.

Muttering about tradition and grumbling that lunch isn’t the same thing at all, the disgruntled Harry accidentally invents a daddy-making machine that looks suspiciously like a tall Kenmore box. All hell breaks loose and soon their nice, quiet house becomes awash in dads – 62 of them – rushing in and out, offering pancakes, playing tennis in the hall, rollerblading through the house, playing “Dancing with the Stars” through the living room. How will Harry and Sue get rid of the chaos before the moms come home?

It’s the new family-friendly homegrown musical Daddy Machine, commissioned by and in a world premiere run through Jan. 27 at Diversionary Theatre. Based on the book by Johnny Valentine, Daddy Machine has a book by Diversionary dramaturge Patricia Loughrey and music and lyrics by Rayme Sciaroni. Siobhan Sullivan and Rayme Sciaroni direct.

There’s a set painted in primary colors, audience participation (kids especially encouraged), cute songs with clever lyrics, a nice message at the end, and a kid-friendly one-act length of about an hour. It’s perfect for kids (especially kids with two moms or two dads) and adults who appreciate that old saw about brevity being the soul of wit. You can’t go wrong here. And the kids are adorable.

Caltrider carries the weight of the show as the canine narrator, alternately looking like a dog and like a, well, a strangely attired person. And this old dog can sing. And so can the rest of this talented seven-person cast.

Daddy Machine closes this Sunday because the show will move to San Diego State University to play at the Theatre of the World Festival on Feb. 8 and 9, and then on to Cal State Long Beach. In March, the show will be featured entertainment on a gay and lesbian family cruise of the Mexican Riviera.

Daddy Machine plays through Jan. 27 at Diversionary Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m.; matinees Saturday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and Sunday at 1 and 3 p.m. For tickets call 619-220-0097 or visit www.diversionary.org.