Friday August 22

21A

[EXTENDED RUN] Arts Equity's Portland premiere is a meaningless one-man trifle by Minnesota playwright Kevin Kling about a few very strange moments aboard the bus that runs between Minneapolis and St. Paul. The driver and all of the passengers—an off-kilter old woman carrying a load of cat food from Trader Joe’s, a drunken bum wearing an empty case of Bridgeport IPA for a helmet, and an overzealous advocate for public transportation, among others—are played with moderate success by Joey LeBard. With the strained accents and self-consciously goofy sensibility, 21A resembles an episode of “Guy Noir: Private Eye” written the morning after Garrison Keillor’s latest bachelor party—weird and menacing, but still a feel-good piece in the end. Like the passengers on the stationary bus, you’ll probably wonder when the damn thing is going to go somewhere. It never does. BEN WATERHOUSE. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 360-695-3770. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Aug. 30. $17-$20, sliding scale Thursdays and Sundays.