A Life in the Theater

When: Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. and Sundays, 3 p.m. Continues through Dec. 22 2019

In 2016, St. Louis Actors' Studio staged a beautiful production of David Mamet's American Buffalo. At the tail end of 2019, the company performs another Mamet drama, A Life in the Theater. STLAS founder and artistic director William Roth, who was so good in American Buffalo, will play Robert, an aging actor paired with John (Ryan Lawson-Maeske), a rising star. In a series of brief glances into their advancing careers, we see Robert's star dim while John's continues to burn brighter. Like a pair of binary stars locked in each other's orbit, John devours Robert's career, or perhaps Robert eats himself up with envy and anger. St. Louis Actors' Studio presents A Life in the Theatre at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and at 3 p.m. Sunday (December 6 to 22) at the Gaslight Theater (358 North Boyle Avenue; www.stlas.org). Tickets are $30 to $35.

— Paul Friswold