If tranquility is what psychotherapist Ben (Ted Koch) and his wife Nessa (Erika Rolfsrud) were seeking when they packed up their belongings in Connecticut and moved, they picked the right house. The homey if crumbling old adobe house in Santa Fe is about as restful looking as they come, with a cactus garden on the deck and southwestern colors within.

But then life and a seemingly endless parade of quirky but utterly unengaging characters starts trooping through the house – oddball clients for Ben, a couple of teenage runaways, a TV writer who speaks sitcom, miscellaneous unexplained others barely named and unclear of dramatic purpose. After a while, tranquility gives way to the suspicion that you’re watching a farce – except that it’s not very funny.

The Old Globe Theatre’s production of Playwright-in-Residence Howard Korder’s 2004 play Sea of Tranquility plays through Feb. 10, directed by Michael Bloom.

Sea of Tranquility seems to be about broken people in a disintegrating house, and about uprooting and re-inventing oneself (and questioning whether that is possible). But what are we to make of characters like teenage Jewish neo-Nazi Josh (Sloan Grenz) or Native American inmate Gilbert (Carlos Acuña), who answers Ben’s question about why he killed his victim with “What was my f-ing choice?” Or another character who asks, “What does it matter what you believe as long as you believe it?” Are these people you’d willingly spend a couple of hours with?

Then there’s the long riff by Nessa about the disappearance of the Anasazi people, the point being that their disappearance was due to internal, not external action. I think this is meant to apply to you and me as well, but it does not seem a particularly enlightening observation.

Time magazine named Sea of Tranquility to be one of the ten best plays of 2004, so perhaps my expectations were too high. The word from here is that even Rosina Reynolds can’t float this sinking boat, though she and Ben have by far the best scene.

Randy gets it right for the production when he says, “I looked inside myself like you’re supposed to, and there’s nothing there.”

But Scott Bradley’s set is terrific.

Sea of Tranquility plays through Feb. 10 at the Old Globe Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 619-234-GLOBE or visit www.theoldglobe.org.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre is a shipwreck in so many ways. Most of the action is dependent on the sea in some way – storms, shipwrecks and pirates figure prominently – and the main character bounces around from place to place on the sea.

Scholars aren’t even sure who wrote this play. Shakespeare gets the credit, but some think the Bard finished a play by someone else; others that he revised a previous effort.

You have a few more days to see the second local incarnation of this seldom-performed work in a year, this time by UCSD’s graduate drama students. Pericles, Prince of Tyre plays through Feb. 2 at the Mandell Weiss Forum Studio, directed by Andrei Belgrader. (Earlier, the Old Globe/USD partnership produced a student production.)

One reason it’s seldom done may be that it calls for two storms at sea, shipwrecks, a casket washing up on the sand with a live person inside and pirates abducting Pericles’ daughter Marina.

Let’s say it presents staging challenges.

Given the uncertainty about the play’s heritage, it seems appropriate that Belgrader gives it a “kitchen sink” interpretation including eclectic acting approaches, music and choreography. Music styles range from Appalachian folk to gospel to vaguely Renaissance, instruments from piano to violin to whistle and flute. In the acting department, get ready for Charlie Chaplin, melodrama, Greek tragedy and Shakespearean comedy, with a touch of the film Pirates of the Caribbean.

Belgrader plays much of it for laughs, including a great scene in which the quartet of knights (suitors for the king’s daughter Thaisa’s hand) do a dance, each holding cardboard cutout armor. I call it “dance with legs and nonsense syllables.” You’ll just have to see it.

Pericles (Josh Wade) is terrific and gorgeous to boot. Irungu Mutu deserves special kudos for playing the aged and bent Helicanus without showing the pain he must have been in. Liz Elkins is dependably winning as Marina, and Joel Gelman does a fine job with all the kings.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre plays through Feb. 2 at the Mandell Weiss Forum Studio. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinee Saturday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 858-534-4574 or visit theatre.ucsd.edu.

Mission dolls, showgirls and gamblers galore are back in town in San Diego Musical Theatre’s Guys and Dolls, playing through Feb. 3 at East County Performing Arts Center. Troy Magino directs and choreographs.

Based on Damon Runyon’s stories about 1940s New York, Frank Loesser’s 1950 show became the fifth longest-running show on Broadway with 1200 performances, and one of the most beloved musicals in the repertoire.

Why? Runyon’s endearing characters and Loesser’s unforgettable songs, for starters. Where else will you meet showgirl Miss Adelaide (Terra C. Macleod), who’s been “engaged” to a gambler for 14 years and has just discovered the reason for her post-nasal drip in a book: “just from waiting around for that plain little band of gold/a person can develop a cold.”

Or Salvation Army mission doll Sarah Brown (Amy Biedel), whose calling to save the plentiful sinners outside the mission door is undermined somewhat when she ends up in Havana (yes, that Havana) having dinner with gambler (and bigtime sinner) Sky Masterson (Robert J. Townsend) ... and falls in love with him.

Or Nathan Detroit (Jamie Torcellini), Miss Adelaide’s fiancé, who spends his life looking for a place to hold frankly illegal crap games, and expends beaucoup energy lying to Adelaide about it.

I will admit that I am not exactly an impartial observer, since in my opinion Guys and Dolls is as close to a perfect and indestructible show as exists in the musical world. Still, this production works. Torcellini’s Nathan is charming, if frankly on the far side of ethical. Macleod’s sneezy Adelaide, brassy of voice and style, does justice to the part, though Nathan and Adelaide (and the other characters) would sound more authentic with New York accents.

Biedel’s Sarah and Townsend’s Sky are well matched visually and vocally, and they can act. Townsend is better looking than Brando, and he can really sing “My Time of Day,” to boot.

In smaller roles, local stalwart Ole Kittleson brings a tear with Arvide’s “More I Cannot Wish You” and Jason Maddy’s Nicely-Nicely Johnson brings down the house with “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.”

These Guys and Dolls are worth a visit. But hurry – the show closes this weekend.

Guys and Dolls plays through Feb. 3 at the East County Performing Arts Center. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call 858-560-5740 or visit www.sdmt.org.