“Put yourself in my place,” says Sterling North (Walter Murray), stopped for DWB (driving while black) in his Jaguar on the way to his new job as director of the Morris Museum. North counts himself lucky to be let go without the request to get out of the car for a spread-eagle search.

At the museum, he meets Ella (Valerie J. Ludwig) who has been assistant to the director for some 26 years, and education director Paul Barrow (John Tessmer), until today acting museum director. North’s first move is to bring in Kanika Weaver (Tenya Johnson) as his assistant (“We have shorthand and don’t need to explain everything”), sending Ella to another department.

Hired from the corporate world to administer one of the premier collections of impressionist art in the world, North is astonished to find eight pieces of exceptionally fine African sculpture downstairs in storage. He wonders why these pieces aren’t on display.

When North mentions to Paul his intention to propose to the board of trustees that they approve putting those eight pieces on display, Paul nearly goes ballistic, precipitating a crisis involving name-calling, damaging press reports by journalist Gillian Crane (Debra Wanger) and a ruined reputation.

The politics of art, racism and the power of the will (both personal and on paper) are explored in Thomas Gibson’s Permanent Collection, playing through March 16 at the 10th Avenue Theatre. The Mo’olelo Performing Arts Company production is directed by Seema Sueko.

This ripped-from-the-headlines story, inspired by the legal tussle over the Barnes Foundation collection outside Philadelphia, is careful to include both sides of the basic issue, which is this: the collector, the eccentric Mr. Morris, hung the art in a way that pleased him, and specified in his will that none of the pieces could be moved, nor could any of the art be sold. Should the will be broken in order to allow for change and avoid charges of racism?

The wider questions are these: How does an art museum decide what to display and what to keep in storage? Is there a political or racist component to those decisions? Art is about seeing. Do we need to see things differently? These are fascinating questions, and Gibson gives us a fine script to help us consider them. (And if you’d like some discussion, Mo’olelo offers post-show talk-backs after the evening show March 1 and the matinees on March 2 and 9.)

Sueko’s fine cast plays Permanent Collection on a handsome set by David F. Weiner. Murray and Tessmer play well off each other, though Tessmer sometimes seems a bit more fidgety than I would expect. The women are uniformly fine, and Joe Powers as Morris’ ghost adds interesting perspective, though I wish Gibson had given him (and us) a reason for his arrangement and his will requirements. That would offer more opportunity for exploration.

Some years ago, while in Philadelphia for a Cézanne exhibit at the art museum, I was privileged to see the Barnes Foundation collection. It is astonishing (the Barnes has more and better Cézannes than the exhibit did, and more Renoirs than I’ve ever seen in one place), with the most eccentric wall arrangement I’ve ever seen in a museum. Let’s hope the new museum is built soon and open to the public. Meanwhile, get a taste of the politics of art in Permanent Collection.

Permanent Collection plays through March 16 at 10th Avenue Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. High school matinees Feb. 27-28, March 5-6 and 12 at 9:30 a.m. For tickets call (619) 342-7395 or visit www.moolelo.net.

OK, let’s say nobody reads the Greeks anymore. Let’s further stipulate that theater needs young fans if it is to survive. And yes, the world is changing and so are tastes.

La Jolla Playhouse and hip-hop pioneer Will Power have taken a step toward bringing the Greeks to young people with The Seven, a recasting of Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes into a modern musical with a hip-hop beat and all the four-letter words you can handle.

The Seven plays through March 16 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre. Jo Bonney directs.

The question under consideration is fate: Are we destined to repeat our forefathers’ mistakes, or can we change history with determined action?

You remember the story: poor old Oedipus, damned by the gods to murder his father and marry his mother, had two sons – Eteocles and Polynices—likewise cursed by their father, doomed to kill each other. This is the story of their attempt, even their determination to thwart the curse, and their ultimate failure to do so.

Their decision to time-share power – Eteocles (Benton Greene) and Polynices (Jamyl Dobson) would take one-year turns ruling Thebes – is thwarted when old Oedipus (Edwin Lee Gibson) appears to each, egging them on to confrontation rather than cooperation. Polynices falls for it, and his ill-conceived assault on Thebes ends as foretold, in bloodshed and death – a little like today’s gang warfare.

Hip-hop depends on music and dance as much as words, and Power uses a DJ (Chinasa Ogbuagu) in place of the female Greek chorus, spinning platters and commenting on the proceedings. The dancing emphasizes youth, energy and physicality, though to me Bill T. Jones’ choreography looks a lot like advanced cheerleading. Power’s lyrics, with their updated political references, are often clever and funny, but just as often incomprehensible.

Edwin Lee Gibson won the 2006 Obie for outstanding performance for his hip-hop Oedipus. A bit of a dandy in a gray brocade-look suit, red lapels and hat, orange Hawaiian print shirt, leopard shoes and cane, he is certainly the most commanding presence on the stage. On the other hand, repeated lines on the order of “Niggas! Y’all know who you fuckin’ with?” don’t sound updated to this old pair of ears; they sound just plain crude.

I’ll give the Playhouse props for trying something different, and the cast (and especially the principals) kudos for what appears to be good hip-hop work (I’m no expert). I hope it does bring young people to the theater. And I’ll grant that the young people in the audience ate it up. Me? I’ll take the Greeks straight, without “updates.”

The Seven plays through March 16 at La Jolla Playhouse’s Sheila and Hughes Potiker Theatre. Shows Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 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 (858) 550-1010 or visit www.lajollaplayhouse.org.

You know there’s something wrong when the most successful piece of business in a Hello, Dolly! production is a tossed-in Louis Armstrong imitation by a member of the chorus.

Jerry Herman an Michael Stewart’s much-beloved musical about everybody’s favorite yenta plays through March 16 at Lamb’s Players Theatre, directed by Robert Smyth.

Set in Yonkers at the turn of the 20th century, Hello, Dolly! captivated audiences and took 10 Tonys in its initial Broadway run in 1964. It has been a staple in the musical comedy repertoire ever since.

“I have always been a woman who arranges things,” Dolly says, and by “things” she mostly means marriages. But Dolly, herself a widow of some years, has pretty much withdrawn from the social whirl; it is her decision to return (after a sign from her dearly departed Ephraim) that provides the catalyst for the four couples united at the end.

It’s easy to fall in love with these characters: Dolly (Kerry Meads), the larger-than-life busybody who knows everyone and everybody’s business; businessman Horace Vandergelder (David Cochran Heath), rich as Croesus and twice as lonely, who allows that it’s time for him to marry because “I’ve grown rich and friendless and mean, and in America that’s about as far as you can go.”

Then there’s Vandergelder’s young niece Ermengarde (Erika Beth Phillips), who squeaks and, as boyfriend Ambrose Kemper (Jon Lorenz) puts it, has “the soul of a field mouse.” Of course, her uncle forbids this match.

Vandergelder’s overworked and underpaid staffers Cornelius (Lance Arthur Smith) and Barnaby (Steve Limones) decide to get out of their Yonkers rut and have an adventure in the big city, where they literally run into the hat shop of Irene Molloy (Colleen Kollar Smith) and her assistant Minnie Fay (Season Duffy) – by the strangest of coincidences, Horace’s destination as well.

Predictable but charming hilarity and confusion ensue, and so does some nice choreography by Kollar Smith. Jeanne Reith’s period costumes and Bill Kickbush’s lighting design add to the look.

So why the snarky lead? First, the company’s natural Dolly, Deborah Gilmour Smyth, is off doing good (building houses in Uganda) instead of doing theater here. Meads is a woman of many talents and considerable charm, but she lacks the brassy voice and pushy demeanor of a Dolly Levi. This show requires a bigger-than-life interpretation for the rest of the cast to play off of. This Dolly cannot provide it.

Mike Buckley sets the tone with his serviceable if somewhat clunky design, which doesn’t allow for Dolly’s grand staircase entrance onstage, but instead forces her to traipse through the audience. It has a bargain-basement feel.

Musically, the five-piece band could use more sound and the singers another rehearsal or two to cement those occasional opening-night missed notes. But Leonard Patton’s spiffy Armstrong impression of the title tune nearly (and rightly) brought the house down.

This Dolly isn’t bad, it’s just a bit low in energy level – disappointing from this group, which usually does such a smashing job on musicals.

Hello, Dolly! plays through March 16 at Lamb’s Players Theatre. 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 www.lambsplayers.org.