Ion theatre’s A Streetcar Named Desire looks and sounds terrific. Director Claudio Raygoza has designed a crowded and claustrophobic set, added sounds of New Orleans (a streetcar, street vendors, shouts, arguments, hot jazz and blaring blues), all in the service of taking the viewer to that small tenement apartment in the French Quarter where, in the course of this classic play, masks will be ripped off and souls laid bare. It all happens in plain view and in a facility with stifling heat that mimics that of the real French Quarter in the summer.

A Streetcar Named Desire plays through Aug. 10 at The Lab at The Academy of Performing Arts.

Raygoza begins with an Expressionist touch: the characters seem lifeless, mostly lying on the floor, to be animated by music or the sounds of the neighborhood.

But once they get up, it’s brutal realism as Blanche, horrified to find her little sister Stella living in such primitive conditions, foments bad family relationships by maintaining that “there’s something downright bestial” about brother-in-law Stanley.

Matt Scott’s Stanley seems bestial, all right, thrashing about the place, scarfing down food, swilling alcohol and shouting a lot. His is a violent and scary presence, but his Stanley lacks the underlying vulnerability that makes him completely human.

Sara Beth Morgan fares better as Stella. The pregnant Stella is what we would call an abused wife, but it is clear that Stanley meets her needs, and she is not concerned that kindness and refined conversation are not his forte.

Blanche is an anachronism, a Southern belle born too late but trying desperately to cling to her notion of self. Losses – first of her young husband to suicide (partly her fault) and then of Belle Reve, the family property – have led to self-destructive actions, and now she comes to Stella, her last refuge.

Monique Gaffney is an actress of considerable talent, but her Blanche lacks both psychological fragility and the sexual undercurrent between her and Stanley that makes her rape inevitable and precipitates her slide into insanity.

The most fully realized reading is Brian Mackey’s Mitch, a kind, understanding man (if a mama’s boy) for whom Blanche sets her cap, and who initially responds but turns on her as well.

Whether hit or miss, going to ion theatre is always an adventure, offering some of the most adventurous programming around. This Streetcar gives us the atmosphere and magic of the classic, but misses on the emotional plane.

A Streetcar Named Desire plays through Aug. 10 at The Lab at The Academy of Performing Arts. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 7 p.m. For tickets, call 619-374-6894 or visit www.iontheatrecompany.com.

A hemophiliac protected within an inch of his life by his cab-driving single mom, an ice cream vendor who also sells drugs and procures your heart’s desire, a hooker who wants to be paid and a part-time belly dancer who “reads feet” converge in William Mastrosimone’s quirky Shivaree, playing through Aug. 9 at OnStage Playhouse in Chula Vista. Teri Brown directs.

Brandon Alexander is terrific as the geeky, gawky Chandler Kimbrough. Chandler is itching to break out of his apartment cocoon, can think and talk intellectual circles around anyone but has no experience and therefore no idea what to say to a girl. But he really wants to try.

Chandler’s well-meaning mom Mary (Lizzie Mander) drops in often and unannounced (presumably between fares) to check on him and try to keep him from harm.

Chandler’s go-to guy is ice cream vendor/drug dealer Scagg (Michael Dean Grulli, who steals every scene he’s in), who this day has set up a rendezvous for Chandler with hooker Laura (Christina Christianson) and wants the bucks in advance.

Meanwhile, Chandler acquires a new neighbor – belly dancer Shivaree (Kali Kirk), with a Southern accent and a novel way to bridge the physical gap between their apartments – who will turn Chandler’s life upside down.

Kirk is a new find for OnStage, but she’s not lacking theatrical chops and turns in a quirkily engaging performance here.

Shivaree won’t go down on your list of great plays or keep you guessing, but it will keep you smiling and make you root for Chandler in his quest for normalcy.

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

The lives of the rich (if not famous) are on display in Samuel Taylor and Cornelia Otis Skinner’s The Pleasure of His Company, playing through Aug. 10 at the Old Globe Theatre. Darko Tresnjak directs the 1958 comedy.

The spectacular San Francisco living room of Katharine (Ellen Karas) and Jim Dougherty (Jim Abele), with a sweeping view of the Golden Gate, is the site of last-minute wedding plans for Katharine’s 21-year-old debutante daughter Jessica Poole (Erin Chambers) and Napa Valley cattle rancher Roger Henderson (Matt Biedel).

The proceedings are disrupted by the appearance of Jessica’s long-absent father, the thrice-married jet-setter and self-described “sybarite in a sober world” Biddeford “Pogo” Poole (Patrick Page), long on charm and clever conversation but short on reliability. Jessica is thrilled (she hasn’t seen him since she was a little girl); ex-wife Kate and Jim rather less so, especially when Pogo announces he’s not only staying in the house, but has installed himself in Jim’s study.

Also in town is Katharine’s crusty old father, Mackenzie Savage (Ned Schmidtke). When Savage teams up with Pogo, social convention is in peril. Savage opines that “morality is merely low blood pressure” and objects to the notion of giving the bride away at all: “Why give her to somebody else to use? She hasn’t begun to use herself!”

Page, the Globe’s Shiley Artist-in-Residence (last seen as the pretentious director in Dancing in the Dark) is terrific as hedonist Poole, so blinded by his own charm that he even tries to hit on his ex, and only realizes how empty his globe-trotting life has been when he sees his daughter. He and Karas, the permanently exasperated former wife, play off nicely against each other.

Chambers and Biedel are cute as the earnest young couple. But my favorites are Schmidtke’s Mark Twain-like Savage and Sab Shimono’s houseboy Toi, who does a terrific job despite being saddled with the very ’50s theatrical linguistic handicap of the “Asian” l-for-r letter substitution.

But the real star is Alexander Dodge’s spectacular set. If it looks somehow familiar, there’s a reason: the inspiration was the Hitchcock film Vertigo, which Taylor wrote.

Gentle messages can be found here about regret, the father-daughter relationship and (if you really push it) the idle rich versus the working rich. But The Pleasure of His Company isn’t about social problems; deep down it’s a pleasant if shallow family comedy full of engaging characters and clever dialogue that doesn’t ask you to ponder any great questions. It’s just good, solid entertainment – perfect for a summer night.

The Pleasure of His Company plays through Aug. 10, at the Old Globe Theatre. Shows 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.

It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy: a perfect time for a goofy sex farce. PowPAC has just the thing: Anthony Marriott and Alistair Foot’s No Sex Please, We’re British, playing through Aug. 10 at the Poway theater. Raylene J. Wall directs.

The plot is simple: newlywed Frances Hunter (Carolyn E. Wheat), bride of sub-branch bank manager Peter (Frank Remiatte), has ordered wine glasses delivered to their new apartment above the bank. She is horrified when the delivery man brings not glasses but pornographic postcards, which would be dimly viewed not only by Peter’s bank bosses but by the local gendarmes. What to do with them?

Add to this situation the classic elements of farce – mistaken identities, several quirky characters (including bank officials) and a busybody mother-in-law, all running in and out of the many doors in the Hunters’ apartment – and sit back for an evening of silliness with no aim but to entertain.

And entertain it does. Wall has choreographed the craziness for maximum giggles, requiring great comic timing. This cast has it.

Wheat and Remiatte are wonderful as the couple whose lives gradually unravel before our eyes. Brian P. Evans hilariously carries the weight of the comedy as Peter’s slightly dim chief clerk Brian Runnicles, whose attempts to help get him and the Hunters ever deeper into the mess. Lois Jane Miller gives a fine performance as Peter’s nosy mother Eleanor, as does Jeff Laurence as Peter’s boss Leslie Bromhead, who has amorous designs on Eleanor. Smaller roles are well handled by Bob Christiansen, Craig McCobb, Rob Conway, Holly Stephenson and Debbie David.

Make no mistake: this is choreographed silliness, not great theater. In fact, it was universally panned by the critics when it opened in London’s West End in 1971. But the public loved it, and it ran for nearly a decade there. So much for critics.

No Sex Please, We’re British runs through Aug. 10, at PowPAC in Poway. Shows Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.; Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 858-679-8085 or e-mail powpacboxoffice@sbcglobal.net.