Lula (Michelle Procopio), a flirtatious white woman, offers an apple to black intellectual Clay (Patrick Kelly) as they ride a New York subway.

“Eating apples together is always the first step,” she says.

This Biblical symbolism initiates a relationship that will escalate in intensity and negativity until a violent confrontation occurs.

Lynx Performance Theatre offers Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman through Dec. 10, directed by Al Germani.

Dutchman is an angry play that came out of the mid-20th century days of segregation and interracial violence that included the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till for whistling at a white woman.

Years later, Clay, emerging from the shadows of his forefathers’ enforced servitude, reads the business pages in a three-piece suit, representing the learned techniques of assimilation that are the key to his economic survival.

The white devil Lula first seduces, then uses insults (“You ain’t no nigger, you’re just a dirty white man”) to pick away at Clay’s carefully submerged racial anger until in a fit of rage he finally explodes: “I sit here in this buttoned-up suit to keep myself from cutting all your throats … and the only thing that would cure the neurosis would be your murder.” Baraka (then known as LeRoi Jones) won an Obie for Dutchman the year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. The title hearkens back to the Flying Dutchman legend and to the fact that many of the slave ships bringing Africans to the new world were owned by the Dutch.

Germani has chosen unusual staging for this piece, emphasizing distance by placing Lula and Clay on side-by-side blocks, not close enough to touch. He’s added the silent character of Ghost (David B. Phillips) in a black mask, who serves as Clay’s surrogate when Lula’s script calls for her to touch him. And he’s brought in saxophonist Bill Kehayias, adding music from artists such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Coltrane, Parker and Ellington, always returning to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” It’s an interesting addition, but I wish he’d move Kehayias upstage during Clay’s last explosive speech because the competition makes it difficult to understand those significant and incendiary words.

Procopio and Kelly play well off each other; Procopio the temptress, Kelly the unsuspecting victim minding his business and trying to get along until Lula brings up things he’d rather leave buried.

Times have changed, and it seems unlikely Baraka’s scenario would happen today (at least for those reasons), but Dutchman remains an important document of a volatile time.

Lynx Performance Theatre’s Dutchman plays through Dec. 10 at San Diego Danceworks, located at 2653 Ariane Dr. Shows Tuesday at 9:15 p.m., Friday at 9:00 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 8:00 p.m. For tickets, call (619) 889-3190 or visit www.lynxperformance.com.

Those wild and crazy (not to mention dead) Plaids – Jinx (Stan Chandler), Smudge (David Engel), Frankie (David S. Humphrey) and Sparky (Larry Raben) – are back, which is as much of a surprise to them as it is to us.

Forever Plaid, a high school vocal quartet, died in a car crash in 1964 and went to that great gig in the sky, but inexplicably they keep coming back to sing for us.

Now they’re back for Plaid Tidings, playing through Dec. 3 at Spreckels Theatre under the auspices of Broadway San Diego and directed by Stuart Ross.

Unsure why they’ve been sent back this time, they spend the first act reprising their last show with songs like “Moments to Remember,” “Perfidia” and “Stranger in Paradise” while trying to puzzle out their mission.

Rosemary Clooney, on a cell phone from Up There, clues them in: It’s about Christmas. So this time, the Plaids play bells (with the help of an audience “volunteer”), sing backup to a Perry Como video and pay hilarious homage to that ultimate outsider Rudolph, who “would never blend in, never be truly happy – and might make a great Plaid.”

One could carp that Plaid Tidings runs a bit long, reprises a bit much or that the intentionally exaggerated gestures wear after awhile, but once these guys start singing, all that is forgotten in the joy of that great close harmony.

Note to Plaid fans: Fear not, their funniest bit is still here: the pastiche of “Ed Sullivan Show” guests, from the Rockettes to José Jiménez, Brunnhilde and the guy balancing plates.

If you’re looking for a little holiday cheer – and a lot of laughs – take in Plaid Tidings.

Plaid Tidings plays through Dec. 3 at Spreckels Theatre. Shows Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday at 7:00 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 6:00 p.m., with matinees Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and Sunday at 1:00 p.m. For tickets, call (619) 220-TIXS or visit www.broadwaysd.com/plaid.php.

It’s a bitch when you can’t get your whole reindeer chorus line together to rehearse because Donner and Blitzen just had to hoof it to Tampa for Cher’s fifth farewell tour.

But director Frank (John Martin) tries to make the best of it in the West Coast premiere of It’s a Fabulous Life, David Sexton’s high-spirited twist on the classic holiday film. The show plays through Dec. 17 at Diversionary Theatre, directed and choreographed by David Brennan.

The plot features Randolph the Rainbow Reindeer, a.k.a. Joe (Zachary Bryant), in the George Bailey role. Joe’s plan to take boyfriend Luis home to meet the parental unit meets with a lukewarm (at best) reception from mom; at the same time, Joe and Luis run into a relationship snag. When Joe wishes aloud that he’d never been born gay, an angel in the form of legendary former director Arthur (Ole Kittleson) grants his wish. And then Joe starts to realize how important he is to his family and friends, and that being gay is not only his lot but the life he chooses.

It’s a Fabulous Life boasts great characters (Trevor Peringer’s flashy RuPaul-like Carl/Carlotta/Prancer is one of my favorites, with comments like: “Remember, the audience is the enemy. They have to be beaten into submission”) and terrific songs by Sexton and Albert Evans (where else will you hear songs like “The Pole Got Hot” and “Don’t Drag Me Through the Holidays Again”?).

And let’s not forget the “tech crew” – Angela (Tori Roze), the butchest dyke on the block, who turns out to be a heck of a gospel singer to boot.

OK, the message is less than subtle and some of the action has been seen before, but what could be more festive than high-stepping reindeer, Mrs. Claus in drag, a gospel-singing dyke and Starlight Opera veteran Kittleson with wings?

It’s a Fabulous Life plays through Dec. 17 at Diversionary Theatre. Shows Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 and 7:00 p.m., with an added performance Monday, Nov. 27, at 7:30 p.m. For tickets, call (619) 220-0097 or visit www.diversionary.org.

Caridad Svich’s rollicking adaptation of Lope de Vega’s The Labyrinth of Desire by the UCSD Theatre closes Nov. 25 at the Sheila & Hughes Potiker Theatre. Gerardo Jose Ruiz directs (this is his master’s project). The course of love, true or temporary, runs in particularly lumpy and amusing fashion in this wonderfully wacky and modernized play, combining elements of Shakespearean plots (notably As You Like It and Twelfth Night) with snatches of Mozart operas (“The Marriage of Figaro,” “Don Giovanni”) and Monty Python’s “strange walks.”

Terrific performances all around, especially from Larry Herron, Michelle Diaz and Amy Ellenberger, and a big dollop of over-the-top hilarity contributed by Brian Hostenske make this production worth a special trip. Kudos also to Nikki Black for the set and Emily DeAngelis for the just-right costumes.

The Labyrinth of Desire plays through Nov. 25 at the Sheila & Hughes Potiker Theatre. Shows Nov. 25 at 2:00 and 8:00 p.m. For tickets, call (858) 534-4574.