Restoration

Writer-performer Claudia Shear explores the art of cleaning art in her affectionate and brainy comedy-drama, a fictional reimagining of the 2004 cleaning of Michelangelo’s David. Shear raises several keen, probing questions about time, decay and how standards of beauty shape our lives. But above all, Restoration is a psychologically acute lesson in the healing power of human contact, and Christopher Ashley gives the fast, intelligent script a tight production.—David Cote