Capsule reviews of current area theater presentations.

A Murder of Crows -- This frequently comical rant on hypocrisy, bigotry, and heroism is the latest in a number of playwright Mac Wellman's works produced by Convergence-Continuum. And if an hour seems like a short show, it's not when you're listening to Wellman's breathless, airtight screeds, which are often directed actor-to-audience, with no pretense of a fourth wall. In this unnamed town, where the only jobs these mouth-breathers qualify for are hauling sludge from the grease pit and cleaning airplane restrooms, fate stinks. And this dead-end existence comes spewing out in speeches that are ripe with the poetry of confusion and disgust, overlaid with absurd allusions and bracing obscenities. Even the throwaway lines have bite, as when bigot Howard describes wife Georgia as "a venal old biddy with the mind of a circular saw." Under the direction of Clyde Simon, the Convergence-Continuum players lend understated power to Wellman's dense and often overlapping dialogue. Produced by Convergence-Continuum through September 23 at the Liminis, 2438 Scranton Rd., 216-687-0074. -- Christine Howey