A year ago the Potomac Theater Project came to town with a dynamite version of Howard Barker's "Scenes From an Execution," a play about a female Renaissance painter that was carried by a whirlwind performance from Jan Maxwell in the lead role. This year for its summer residency the company, now calling itself PTP/NYC, has set itself a more difficult task with “The Europeans,” another play by Mr. Barker that isn’t a star vehicle and doesn’t offer the tidy messages theatergoers might be conditioned to expect in the lazy days of summer. But the lively acting and Richard Romagnoli’s seamless direction again make the company stand out amid the season’s fluff and fringiness as one to turn to for serious work....This fine production will certainly have you speculating afterward.

AARON RICCIO Showdown

Neal Bell's brilliant adaptation of Émile Zola's 1867 novel Thérèse Raquin puts a stake through the heart of dry naturalism. With a sense of Ibsen's modernism, he focuses on the stark apathy Raquin feels toward marrying her cousin, Camille ("I can't be frightened to death; I'm already dead and this is hell"), which is all the better for showing her sexual awakening at the hands of the roguish Laurent. Adding to this is Jim Petosa's romantic direction, which finds clever ways to mix such morbidity with dashes of sweetness: ravenous passion, indeed. Much credit to the cast, too: as Raquin, Lily Balsen (like a younger, more innocent Helena Bonham Carter) is haunted by an actual ghost, but what moves us is the way she is haunted by genuine regret. It's a shame that Scott Janes isn't allowed such range, but his Laurent is nonetheless solid, as are the terrific turns of Willie Orbison (Camille) and Helen-Jean Arthur (Camille's mother), both of whom are sharpened by a different sort of passion: rage. It's easy to be poetic, but hard to justify such language, as Thérèse Raquin has done. That's easy to say, but not at all hard to believe for those who have seen it.

PATRICK LEE Theatre Mania

Howard Barker's The Europeans, currently getting its U.S. premiere at Atlantic Stage II courtesy of the Potomac Theatre Project, vividly depicts a skewed moral universe in the aftermath of war in which the most lingering nightmare may be the collective human tendency to learn so little. But the complex, often challenging, and sometimes gravely funny play resists simple characterization -- and, to its credit, avoids reduction to one simple message. While not easy to digest or fully appreciate in one viewing, the play is fascinating and provocative, and the production, guided by Richard Romagnoli, is often compelling.