The Hit isn’t a one-man show in the usual sense, but it’s close in another way. Lamb’s Players Theatre resident scenic designer Mike Buckley wears four hats here: playwright, scenic designer, props man and actor.

Buckley’s The Hit, a frothy concoction of romance, mistaken identities and contract murder, plays through July 13 on the Coronado stage, directed by Robert Smyth.

On Buckley’s wonderfully cluttered antique-shop set, Cynthia Gerber plays Susan Timmerman, who runs the San Francisco shop with younger brother Steve (Chris Bresky), a community college math whiz pondering an offer to tutor math at Stanford. He wants to go, but is reluctant to leave Susan to run the shop alone.

Susan, recently diagnosed with cervical cancer, is secretly planning to have herself whacked by a hit man and leave everything to Steve. She is awaiting the arrival of the, shall we say, contractor.

Enter unsuspecting neighbor Sam (Buckley), not to be confused with contractor Samm (Season Duffy), carrying on the family tradition of gun for hire. Confusion reigns, especially after romantic sparks are ignited between Sam and Susan, leading to predictably amusing cross-purpose conversations and other goofiness.

Meanwhile, Steve and Samm hit it off – especially verbally, as they waltz around the shop punning on the motley merchandise. But Samm understands the complications of mixing work and pleasure, leading to more misunderstandings and hilarity. You know how this will end, but no matter: Getting there is all the fun.

Bresky’s energetic, romantically shy and totally lovable geek Steve is a great foil for Duffy’s outgoing Samm, with her colorful multicollege educational background, no degree and, shall we say, unusual profession.

Gerber is great in her emotional roller-coaster of a role that has her falling hard and fast for Sam and immediately backing away when she contemplates the “arrangement” which will leave this once-widowed guy alone again.

Buckley, the Renaissance man of the moment, proves up to all four challenges including a totally believable performance as Sam.

Lamb’s does it again: The Hit is a summertime romantic comedy that goes down like a mint julep on a warm afternoon.

The Hit plays through July 13 at Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado and shows are Tuesday through Thursday at 7:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets call, 619-437-0600 or visit www.lambsplayers.org.

How is this night different from all other nights? It’s the night Jessie Cates (Jo Dempsey) has chosen to kill herself with her father’s pistol.

San Diego’s newest theater company, Ascension Theatre Company, presents Marsha Norman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ’night Mother through June 29 at Sews and Shows Theatre in Lemon Grove, directed by artistic director Charmen Jackson.

The 30-something Jessie, whose life has run aground after a divorce and the incarceration of son Ricky, has spent some years living with and caring for Mama Thelma (Joan Westmoreland), whose own life centers around candy, TV, crochet work, her empty-headed friend Agnes (who won’t enter the house for fear of catching Jessie’s epilepsy) and Jessie’s brother Dawson and wife Loretta. Communication is sparse at best and not at all self-revelatory.

Norman’s script specifies that Jessie and Mama share a small, undistinguished place in an anonymous location, unidentifiable by place or time. In her tiny kitchen, Mama frets about running out of snowball cupcakes, Hershey bars and peanut brittle while Jessie methodically sets about checking off the items on her final to-do list. She carefully explains where cleaning supplies are stored, how to get food delivery and how to use the washing machine.

A casual question about the whereabouts of her dad’s gun pushes Jessie to what may be her last lie when she tells Mama she wants it for “protection.” Soon she will admit her real purpose, and most of the succeeding dialogue will tear down the lifelong familial communication barriers and lay bare the disappointments, shattered dreams, fears and dashed hopes of these two women. Along the way, the audience watches time pass on the kitchen clock and run out on Jessie’s time schedule.

Westmoreland responds to the emotional weight of Jessie’s news with a quick run-through of the stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, ending with a sort of acceptance. It’s a delicate task, but Westmoreland is up to the challenge.

Likewise, Dempsey’s Jessie is convincingly methodical in her dogged determination, as she matter-of-factly likens life to a bus ride and suicide to getting off a few stops early.

The emotionally devastating ’night Mother will break your heart with its honesty but reaffirm your faith in the ability of theater to touch the soul.

What broke my heart was that there were few people in the audience for this important and well-acted play. My only quibble is with the Southern accents advised against by the playwright, which serve to distance the audience and therefore soften the emotional impact somewhat.

Getting the word out about a new theater company is slow work, but Ascension deserves to survive. See this play if you can.

‘night Mother plays through June 29 at Sews and Shows Theatre in Lemon Grove. Shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

For tickets call 619-634-2049 or visit www.ascensiontheatre.com.

The tall, thin man elegant in morning coat and silk tie strolling down the aisle is none other than Polish composer Fryderyk Chopin, arriving at his Paris salon in 1848 to give us, his students, a piano lesson.

Monsieur Chopin, second in pianist/actor Hershey Felder’s “Composers Sonata,” plays through June 22 at the Old Globe Theatre, directed by Joel Zwick.

Felder previously presented the first “movement” of his sonata (Beethoven, As I Knew Him), and in late June will reprise the third, George Gershwin Alone.

Chopin’s life was short but tumultuous, as was his famous and heartbreaking decade-long affair with writer George Sand, but he left a body of achingly romantic piano music known to every student of the instrument since the late 19th century. Felder will play nearly a dozen of Chopin’s best-known works, including his earliest composition, the “Polonaise in G Minor,” the “Grande Valse Brillante,” the “Funeral March,” and the lovely “Mazurka in G Minor,” written in 1849, the year he died.

Felder’s program jumps around a bit, from the early family agony of his little sister’s death and a feverish dream he had while composing in a dank Spanish monastery, to the playful side of Chopin the imitator, making fun of bombastic fellow composer Franz Liszt and the swinish Baron Rothschild.

But mainly, Felder wants to show us how Chopin brought the piano to life by “infusing every note with your soul.” He gives us a bit about Chopin’s nationalism (he was often introduced as “Mr. Chopin from Warsaw”) and about his famous use of rubato.

“Don’t make music for another person,” he counsels. “Make beautiful music because you are an artist and that is what artists do.”

Known today for his compositions, Chopin was also famous at the time for his impromptu performances in the Paris salon. Felder closes the evening with a half-hour of questions from the “class,” in which he will have the chance to show off the composer’s quick wit and improvisational ability.

Monsieur Chopin plays through June 22 at the Old Globe Theatre. Shows are Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.

For tickets call 619-23-GLOBE or visit www.theoldglobe.org