Winston Churchill could have been talking about Emily Dickinson when in 1939 he described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

Most of us read Dickinson’s poetry in school and were told she lived the life of a recluse, locked in her upstairs bedroom in the family home in Amherst. But that’s only part of the story. Playwright William Roetzheim explores other aspects of her life which have recently come to light in his play Dickinson.

Lynx Performance Theatre presents Dickinson in a short run through Friday, Aug. 7, at the North Park Vaudeville and Candy Shoppe at 2031 El Cajon Blvd. in Hillcrest. Al Germani directs.

Dickinson died a virtually unknown poet, having published only a dozen of her more than 1700 poems during her life (she died in 1886 at 55). Remaining an unknown was her choice (“Publishing is the auction of the mind of man,” she wrote), as was her unusual “slant” rhyme scheme and the fact that she began collecting ads for tombstones at the age of 26. She has since been recognized as one of the greatest American poets.

Lovely, enigmatic and clever, with a quick mind and sharp tongue, Emily was also passionate and emotionally fragile. She apparently had two or three male loves in her life, but all were already married, none consummated. She also, if her letters are to be taken as fact, had at least a crush on sister-in-law Susan Gilbert. There is a distinct possibility that she (and possibly her sister Vinnie) were sexually abused by their strict father (Charlie Riendeau).

Unfortunately, Vinnie (Diana Sparta) destroyed all the letters in Emily’s possession after her death, on instructions from her sister.

Dickinson is a conversation between Emily (Rhianna Basore) and a playwright (Greg Wittman), meeting across the years in a dream, the playwright begging her to help him understand why she wrote what she did and why she was so protective of both her life and her craft.

This is right up psychotherapist Germani’s alley, and he makes the most of his fascinating subject, staging it as a chamber piece, which keeps the audience’s attention on Emily and the Playwright.

Basore, in Emily’s trademark demure, floor-length, white, neck-high dress, is mercurial, maddening and fascinating in her conversations with the playwright, often besting rather than communicating with him.

Wittman is terrific as the frustrated playwright just looking for answers who, like many of us, is a little bit in love with this most unusual woman.

Sparta shows great versatility in playing all the other female roles (including Vinnie, mother and Susie) and also contributes her lovely voice to some songs Emily liked.

Charlie Riendeau likewise does a good job with all the other male roles, including father, brother Austin and the various men in Emily’s life.

Dickinson leaves us with most of the questions we started with, but gives us possibilities in light of which to reread the poetry. It’s a highly recommended outing.

Dickinson runs through Friday, Aug. 7, at North Park Vaudeville and Candy Shoppe at 2031 El Cajon Blvd. in Hillcrest. Shows Thursday through Sunday at 8 p.m. For tickets, call 619-220-8663 or visit www.northparkvaudeville.com.

Macbeth is the first Shakespeare play many schoolkids are exposed to. And why not? With ghosts, treachery, murder, witches, madness and walking trees, it’s got everything but sex (oh, there’s that “unsex me” line, but that doesn’t count).

Now the fledgling Intrepid Shakespeare Company presents its streamlined, 90-minute version of Macbeth through Sunday, Aug. 9, at Compass Theatre. Sean Cox and Jason D. Rennie direct.

It’s intrepid, all right. With textual advice from Jonathan McMurtry, Intrepid founders Sean Cox and Christy Yael have pushed the bard’s dark tale even further, into a nightmarish, nonstop illustration of the consequences of evildoing.

Macbeth (Cox), a victorious general on the way home from the wars, writes his wife (Yael) about an encounter with three “weird sisters” who prophesy that he shall be king.

That’s all Lady Macb – who’s been itching for more status and power – needs to set in motion the dastardly plot that will ensnare them both. The plan is to off King Duncan when he spends the night in the Macbeth manor. Macbeth, not lacking in ambition himself, agrees. But the plotters find that murder leads to more murder and begets insanity.

Intrepid has cut most of the characters and slashed the cast to a skeleton crew (if that’s quite the phrase) of seven, most playing two roles. They’re going for the gut in this production: The weird sisters mutter from offstage and two headlight-bright lights shine in the audience’s eyes when they speak; Lady Macb issues blood-curdling shrieks every now and again. It’s all a bit creepy, though pretty effective at hitting the target.

Cox has the military bearing down; his tentative “who, me?” response when his wife suggests he kill the king sets up the slow disintegration that will drive him into paranoia and death.

Yet Lady Macbeth’s transformation from giddy delight at the reading of her husband’s letter to crazed arranger of murder and finally (when in an Intrepid inspiration she reads the letter again) into insanity is more effective visually than textually.

In fact, much of the time the dialogue proceeds at a 21st century pace. This is in sync with the concept, but doesn’t give the audience much chance to enjoy the poetry of the text.

Most of the other actors play at least two roles; a tiny bit of costume enhancement would serve to keep straight which is which. Mark C. Petrich plays Duncan and the porter; Jesse MacKinnon, Macduff and murderer 2; Danny Campbell, Ross; Eddie Yaroch, Banquo, doctor and soldier. All turn in solid performances, though one wonders why Duncan has the only accent, and that’s British.

Shakespeare’s plays have been bowdlerized, adapted, satirized and bastardized for centuries. Intrepid adds another layer to that set, in a fitfully effective, modernized piece. Bring on the next.

Intrepid Shakespeare Company’s production of Macbeth plays through Sunday, Aug. 9, at Compass Theatre. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinée Sunday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 619-688-9210 or visit www.compasstheatre.com

The third annual Resilience of the Spirit Festival, underway at Compass Theatre, aims to highlight the strength of the human spirit in six plays in two sets. Each night features two short plays and one longer one.

Program one opens with British playwright Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children, in which eight people of varying ages discuss how to tell a young child about the dangers outside. Some present the Israeli viewpoint; others the Palestinian; each line begins with “Tell her” or “Don’t tell her”: “Tell her this is our promised land”; “Don’t tell her about guns at the checkpoints.”

It’s a thought-provoking piece, mostly presenting the Palestinian perspective; it created outrage when presented in London. In the cast are Amanda Austin, Brian Burke, Allison MacDonald, June Gottlieb, Selina Turnbull Wood, Tracey McNeil, Charles Peters and George Weinberg-Harter. Fred Moramarco directs.

Violets Bloom at Sunset is based on festival director and playwright Paola Hornbuckle’s uncle’s experience in Spain during Franco’s repressive rule. In 1965, he was arrested and imprisoned for three months for frequenting a gay bar. Kevin Six directs.

Father Navarro (Charles Peters) runs a “Center for the Rehabilitation and Re-Education of Degenerates,” i.e., a torture center for gays. When Andres (Jorge Rodriguez) is dragged in, the apparently gay Father Navarro makes it even more difficult for him. Spanish writer Garcia Lorca (Brian Burke) figures in this horrifying piece, as does Andres’ mother Maria (played by Hornbuckle) and friend Jose (Burke), with whom Andres was enjoying a drink before the horror began.

Welcome to Ramallah, by Sonja Linden and Adah Kay, is based on Kay’s experience living in Ramallah on the West Bank. American Natasha (Sherri Allen) visits “do-gooder” sister Mara (Allison MacDonald) in Ramallah on the way to Galilee, where she intends to scatter their father’s ashes.

Mara, whose Palestinian friend Daoud (Saiid Zamingir) remembers when his family members including uncle Salim (Haig Koshkarian) were tossed out of their home in Galilee, does not want to join her sister for the ceremony.

Even more unpleasant interfamilial connections come to light in this tense but fascinating piece, directed by Charlie Riendeau.

The best piece in Program 2 is Frank Higgins’ Blondes, which illustrates the lengths to which American commanders in Iraq may have gone to keep their troops safe. Kevin Six directs.

Sgt. Sullivan (Todd P. Hylton) and his girlfriend, Pfc. Joy Harmon (Wendy Savage), set up an ingenious process to make the confiscation of insurgent weapons safer for American troops. The play revolves around Harmon’s interrogation by Capt. Mullally (Calandra Crane) about this off-the-books tactic. The interaction between these three people is well written and wonderfully acted. riveting to watch.

Stations, by Michael Hemmingson, is about two lost souls on a train and features a terrific performance by 10-year-old Cody Menasche as an L.A. kid largely ignored by his parents who befriends adult Sandy (Bailey Rose Neil) on her way home to her mother (Reina Menasche, Cody’s real mother) in San Diego. This also features Charles Peters in another distasteful role, as a masher trying to pick up Sandy.

An American Sunset, set during the American Civil War, is a short piece by Jack Shea about the soldier who wrote “Taps.” It is directed by Nick Reeves.

Cottonmouth Jubilee, by K. Biadaszkiewicz, is about racism and murder in Mississippi. David Paye directs.

The Resilience Festival closes on Wednesday, Aug. 5. Program 1 runs Sundays at 7 p.m. and Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m. Program 2 shows on Mondays and Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. For tickets, call 619-688-9210 or visit www.compasstheatre.com.

Shakespeare’s “problem play” Measure for Measure gets a decidedly problem-free interpretation from Richard Baird’s Poor Players Theatre through Sunday, Aug. 16, at Vista’s Off-Broadway Theatre. Baird directs and stars.

Poor Players distinguished itself a few years back with barebones but excellent productions of Shakespeare’s plays. The tradition continues here: a pared-down cast of eight offers terrific acting in multiple roles; a black-and-white theme in both contemporary costumes and the no-frills set serve the purpose without being distracting; and as it should be with the bard, the words are the thing.

Measure for Measure is problematic in that it presents a bleak picture of humankind, demonstrating that personal and political corruption are rife. Here there is no Shakespearean tragic figure to purge it; the bard leaves us to consider our own lives, actions and honor.

The kind and merciful Duke Vincentio of Vienna (David Loar), fearing that licentiousness is rampant, leaves the city in the care of straight-arrow Angelo (Baird). Angelo begins by condemning Claudio (Justin Lang) to death for fornication with his fiancée Juliet (Sarah Hayes), which resulted in her pregnancy. Despite the pleas of the condemned and even Angelo’s righthand man Escalus (John Tessmer), Angelo is adamant.

Claudio asks his friend Lucio (Eric Schoen) to visit his sister, the nun Isabella (Amanda Schaar), and ask her to intercede with Angelo.

Isabella does her brother’s bidding, only to be offered the Tosca solution: a tryst in exchange for Claudio’s life. What’s worse, when she reports this to her brother, he counsels her to agree.

Unknown to all, the Duke hasn’t gone anywhere; he’s put on priest’s garb and is walking around the city, watching the haps. What he finds does not cheer him. His hard-nosed replacement is about to kill Claudio (when the duke knows Angelo has committed a similar infraction) and Lucio has the gall to badmouth the duke to his face (though of course Lucio doesn’t recognize that face).

The duke concocts a ruse to save Claudio and ensnare Angelo without besmirching Isabella’s virtue. Even Mariana (Sarah Hayes), Angelo’s rejected ex, will get what she wants. But we’re left to contemplate what happened to honor, virtue, integrity and those other virtues we humans are supposed to cultivate.

This production is full of gemlike scenes: dramatically, those between Angelo and Isabella are riveting, and the comic relief scenes with malaprop-spouting constable Elbow (Neil McDonald) hilarious.

There’s so much fine acting that I’d be here all day detailing it. One of my favorites is Schoen’s Lucio, a bit of a bawd himself, who commands attention whenever he’s on the stage, whether as Lucio, a friar, Froth or the prisoner Barnadine (though he does that last from offstage).

Baird, famous locally for his bigger-than-life performances, dials it back a bit in his portrayal of Angelo, the bean counter with a secret and a vicious streak. But it’s bar the door when he dons the butcher’s apron of executioner Abhorson and lumbers in with bloody axe in hand.

Loar is terrific as the duke; Schaar a lovely and affecting Isabella (and funny as whore Kate Keepdown); Lang’s scared-little-boy Claudio is credible and his bawd Pompey funny; McDonald, so funny as Elbow, also does a funny whore and a suitably officious provost; Hayes gets a few great scenes as Mariana, the wronged fiancée, and also convinces as the very pregnant Juliet and the funny Mistress Overdone; and Tessmer is excellent as Escalus and in two small additional roles.

Baird has spent the past few years acting at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and then as associate artistic director at Mesa, Arizona’s Southwest Shakespeare Company. He is negotiating his contract, but will stay if that does not work out.

It’s good to have him and his company back. As Oliver Twist would say, “Please, sirs, may we have some more?”

Measure for Measure plays through Sunday, Aug. 16, at the Off-Broadway Theatre, 131 Main Street in Vista. Shows Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.; matinée Saturday at 2 p.m. For tickets, call 858-643-9349.