Imagine one of René Magritte's paintings brought to fulminous, razzle-dazzle life. That's Sarah Ruhl's highly, wryly comic new play, 'Dead Man’s Cell Phone.' Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati offers this regional premiere in a well conceived but mostly impenetrable production directed by Michael Evan Haney and brilliantly designed by Brian c. Mehring.  

What you have in 'Timon of Athens' is perhaps the most obscure, least respected, least performed script in the Shakespeare canon. Contrariwise, what you have onstage at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company is a sharp-edged, frequently funny, relentlessly caustic, razzle-dazzle production that mines 'Timon' for its cautionary values and hangs tight as it slathers on layers of contemporary satire.