It’s no surprise to women that men (and women) can be vicious bastards, but few writers put that fact onstage as readily as Neil LaBute, whose devastating portrayal of male behavior in the film In the Company of Men and the play Fat Pig put many of us on special alert.

In his play Some Girl(s), LaBute offers an unnamed Guy (Mark Feuerstein), who crosses the country to visit four previously dumped girlfriends, ostensibly in order to apologize for his boorish behavior. The stubbly-faced 33-year-old writer assures the women he just wants to make sure there was “no harm, no foul.” Lest you wonder at his naiveté, remember that this is LaBute, and what you see is not necessarily what you get.

Some Girl(s) plays on Sibyl Wickersheimer’s cleverly reconfigurable hotel room set through March 9 at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles, directed by the playwright.

From innocent high school sweetheart Sam (Paula Cale Lisbe) to sexpot Tyler (Justina Machado) to Lindsay (Rosalind Chao), wife of Guy’s former academic colleague to Bobbi (Jaime Ray Newman), deserted for Guy’s move to Chicago, it’s clear that these women have neither forgiven nor forgotten the long-ago shabby behavior suffered at the whim of this Guy so mysteriously stepping back into their lives.

First on Guy’s list is Sam (Paula Cale Lisbe) in Seattle, who was dumped right before the prom. “Funny you know so much about women....now,” she says, telling him an acquaintance had e-mailed her his recent article in The New Yorker.

Sam spills her wounded pride, noting that “You want to believe that at some point in your life, you mattered to someone. And I wanted to feel that way about us,” then turns to go. Guy calls to her on the way down the hall: “Did I mention I was getting married?”

Next up is sexpot Tyler (Justina Machado), who thought she was using him as much as the reverse, and wouldn’t mind a little roll in the hay for old times’ sake right now. But he can’t resist a deliberately cruel comment: he tells her that he was thinking of someone else the whole time he was with her.

In Boston, he meets Lindsay (Rosalind Chao), by far the most fun confrontation to watch. Lindsay, a gender studies professor, was married to Guy’s mentor and academic boss. He ditched her and disappeared as soon as her husband got wind of the affair, but she’s on to him: “It’s astonishing how vampiric you are ... how cannibalistic.” But she gets her revenge.

Last in the list is Bobbi (Jaime Ray Newman), a blonde cheerleader type who wasn’t sure of the date of their meeting but has since become a physician, and still may hold the key to Guy’s heart. At any rate, he tells her his fiancée resembles her. She doesn’t waste any time labeling him “an emotional terrorist,” and asking, “Why would I want to be pals with you?” She also accidentally discovers the perverse reason behind his cross-country trek.

This is payback for the girls (at least for a while), and the four victims are terrific. Feuerstein? Well, I kept asking myself why any of them would hook up with him in the first place ... and then I remembered some of the fellows I have dated. Score one for the Guy.

LaBute calls this a romance. Warm and fuzzy it isn’t, but funny and oh-so-familiar? You bet.

Some Girl(s) runs through March 9 at the Audrey Skirball Theater at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles. Shows Tuesday through Thursday at 8 p.m.; Friday at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday at 3:30 and 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. For tickets call (310) 208-5454, visit geffenplayhouse.com, or call Ticketmaster at (213) 365-3500.

Love levels all ranks in Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore – but not before G&S have made gentle fun of the social pretensions and silliness of the highborn in British society.

Lyric Opera San Diego’s production of H.M.S. Pinafore plays through Feb. 24 at Birch North Park Theatre. David Brannen directs the stage action; Leon Natker conducts the musical forces.

As in many G&S works, Pinafore centers on a socially inappropriate romance – here, between the lowly sailor Ralph Rackstraw (Robert Boldin) and Capt. Corcoran’s lovely daughter Josephine (Priya Palekar).

Of course, Capt. Corcoran (Scott Gregory) has someone appropriate in mind for Josephine – none other than the “ruler of the queen’s navy” Sir Joseph Porter (J. Sherwood Montgomery). Josephine has no interest in Sir Joseph, a clear parody of Queen Victoria’s First Lord of the Admiralty, a publisher with no seagoing background. Sir Joseph offers this sage advice: “Stick close to your desk/and never go to sea/and you all may be rulers/ of the Queen’s navy.”

There are other amusing characters, such as itinerant peddler Little Buttercup (Martha Jane Weaver), offering “ribbons and laces, scissors and knives, treacle and toffee” – and secretly in love with the captain. And Dick Deadeye (Daniel Klein), a tattletale with a movable eye patch.

A Shakespearean style identity shake-up eventually results in plans for a triple wedding and sets up the required happy ending, and the audience leaves smiling and humming those sprightly, well-known tunes.

This production boasts a well matched set of lovely voices, fine chorus work, a good group of musicians in the pit and appropriately smile-inducing stage business. What more can you ask?’

Well, there is one thing: better diction. It’s easy to assume everybody knows these words, but some do not and diction (especially in the second act) could and should be clearer. Or how about supertitles?

Lyric Opera San Diego’s production of H.M.S. Pinafore plays through Feb. 24 at North Park Birch Theatre. Shows Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. For tickets call (619) 239-8836 or visit www.lyricoperasandiego.org.

Freedom, social convention and absolute power are explored in Polish playwright Slawomir Mro?ek’s Tango, playing through February 23 at the Mandell Weiss Forum Theatre. The UCSD Theatre production is directed by Gabor Tompa, head of UCSD’s graduate directing program.

Student Arthur (Brandon Taylor) returns home to find that the hard-won throwing off of the “old fetters and chains” of artistic and moral conventions has resulted not in greater creativity and happiness but in chaos and decay.

Just look, the house is a mess: floor covered in papers; several layers of peeling wallpaper; a mirror that doesn’t quite reflect but revolves to reveal a passageway; mother’s wedding dress hanging out for all to see; a catafalque in the living room.

Arthur’s mother Eleanor (Rebecca Levy) wanders through, vamping to “Summertime” and later to “La Habanera” from Carmen. Dad Stomil (Rufio Lerma) stumbles in, still in pajamas with the crotch unbuttoned. Arthur even discovers that his mother is fooling around with the family servant, Eddie (Ross Crain) – with his dad’s knowledge and consent. Why, they’re even doing the tango, that erotic dance symbolizing the breakdown of morality.

Finding this situation intolerable – “a brothel where nothing works because everyone does anything and each has the right to do whatever he likes with whomever he chooses” – Arthur longs for a return to “an orderly world.” He wants to become a doctor, have a traditional wedding with Ala (Lorene Chesney) and settle down. So Mrozek’s Hamlet-like Arthur, cursing the perceived necessity to “set things right,” plots anti-revolutionary activity to force his family to conform to his idea of order. Little does he suspect where this will lead.

Mrozek’s 1964 absurdist play (though it also adheres to the unities of time, place and action) was an instant success and is possibly the best known contemporary Polish play. Its political overtones contributed both to the playwright’s 1968 exile and to the rediscovery of Polish drama by the West.

The acting is fine all around, but Nikki Black’s wacky set is the real standout in this production, followed closely by Maggie Whitaker’s costumes.

The only problem for contemporary audiences is excessive length. Brisker pacing would help, but Tango is from the three-act, two-intermission era, long gone from today’s stages. It’s done in two acts here, but it’s a two and a half hour time commitment.

This weekend is your last chance to see Tango.

UCSD Theatre’s production of Tango plays through Feb. 23 at the Mandell Weiss Forum. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. For tickets call (858) 534-4574.