Theater and arts notes and reviews:
- Playhouse Merced takes an affectionate, irreverent look at the Bible with its production of "The Bible: The Complete Word of God (Abridged)," which begins a three-weekend run Friday at the company's Black Box Theatre.The show is from the creators of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)," which is well-known to Valley audiences. The play examines such thorny theological issues as whether Adam and Eve had navels, and did Moses really look like Charlton Heston?The show features Michael Winder, Dustin Brown and Rob Hypes.Tickets: $20, $17 seniors. Details: (209) 725-8587, playhousemerced.com.- The Artists' Repertory Theatre production of "All in the Timing" continues through Nov. 29 with performances at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays. Here's an excerpt from my review on the Beehive:"All in the Timing," a collection of short plays by the very talented playwright David Ives, was split into a couple of parts by Artists' Repertory Theatre and presented at the past two Rogue Festivals. Both outings were big artistic successes. Ives' gently absurdist contemplations of time and language fit perfectly into the Rogue's breezy, fast-paced format. Sharp performances abounded. The direction crackled. Audiences seemed to walk away exhilarated.Now the theater has brought back all the Rogue short plays, plus one bonus offering that hadn't made the cut, in an evening-length performance of "All in the Timing."In this incarnation, the magic is harder to find. The laughs are still in evidence, but the wit and precision of the evenings is diminished.In several cases, changes in cast or direction bogged down what had been uproarious titles. And the cumulative weight of the eight offerings gave the evening a heaviness that wasn't even hinted at with the Rogue shows.A case in point: the short play "The Universal Language," directed by Michael J. Peterson. This clever one-act about a troubled woman who answers a classified ad to learn a language with which she isn't familiar featured Kate McKnight reprising her strong and resonant performance from the Rogue. (In fact, it's one of the strongest roles I've ever seen her play.) But her partner in the scene, Luis Ramentas, doesn't connect with McKnight with the same chemistry as Jaguar Bennett, who played the role in the Rogue. And for a one-act that revels in language, this version lacked the crispness in diction it needed.Tickets: $12 advance, $15 at door. Details: (559) 222-8539, brownpapertickets.com.- In Porterville, the Barn Theatre continues its run of the comedy "A Bad Year for Tomatoes" about a famous actress who decides to settle down and write her autobiography.Tickets: $10, $5 students and seniors. Details: (559) 310-7046, barntheater. porterville.com. Arenas Fine Arts Gallery in Visalia presents abstract paintings by Dolores Witt and James Stark Saturday-Dec. 31.An artist reception will be held 6-8 p.m. Saturday. The two artists are an interesting juxtaposition: She's a former artist for Walt Disney and MGM studios who turned to fine art; he's known for his hard-hitting rock'n'roll photographs published in Rolling Stone and his book "Punk '77" who also is a trained painter.Witt and Stark met and became close friends through their involvement in the Visalia arts community. Neither of them had painted abstracts before, which is what this show presents.The gallery is located at 208 W. Main St., Visalia. Details: (559) 733-1981. The Fresno Community Chorus, which boasts more than 100 members, tackles Mozart's famed Requiem Mass in D minor and Handel's Dixit Dominus in a 2:30 p.m. Sunday concert at the Shaghoian Concert Hall, 2770 E. International Ave., Clovis North High School campus.Tickets: $15, $8 students. Details: communitychorus.csufresno.edu, (559) 278-2654.- Belgian pianist Nikolaas Kende, who has performed extensively in Europe, makes one of his first U.S. appearances at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Fresno State Concert Hall as part of the Philip Lorenz Memorial Keyboard Concerts series.Kende is a graduate of the Amsterdam and Munich music conservatories and was praised by the publication La Libre Belgique as a "sensitive musician, poetic, visionary, gifted with big technique, always in service of the music."Tickets: $18, $12 seniors, $5 students. Details: keyboardconcerts.com, (559) 278-2337.