The Aliens

In her sharp new drama, Annie Baker (Circle Mirror Transformation) employs nakedly humanist sympathies and carefully cloaked formal rigor, this time to illustrate the twin solaces of friendship and art. Director Sam Gold does impressively undetectable work, so his actors are more overheard than observed. Michael Chernus, Dane DeHaan and Erin Gann deliver triumphant performances, but since this is a Baker play, those triumphs linger in your mind as quiet, fragile, dearly cherished things.—Helen Shaw