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Glass 

Tolstoy said it: Happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And yet, Little Green Pig Theatrical Concern's artistic director, Jay O'Berski, keeps finding resonances between Tom, Laura and Amanda Wingfield, of mid-century East St. Louis—as depicted in Tennessee Williams' famous memory play, The Glass Menagerie—and Zooey, Franny and Bessie Glass, of the Upper East Side in mid-century New York City, whose disparate lives were chronicled in the novellas and short stories of J.D. Salinger.

Those controversial ties fund O'Berski's new work, Glass, which opens the sixth season for Little Green Pig this week at Common Ground Theatre. While the company terms the work "an adaptation" of the play by Williams, whose centennial is being celebrated this year, they also note it's "in the style of" two of their more memorable, and extreme, earlier literary reinterpretations: 2006's Three Sisters (On Ice) and the zombified 2007 A Streetcar Named Desire.

Jennifer Evans, Jane Holding, John Jimerson and Trevor Johnson navigate these not-exactly-parallel universes, in performances through Saturday and then continuing through Sep. 24. Tickets are $8–$15; given the intimacy of the theater and the buzz already out about this show, reservations are a good idea: tickets@littlegreenpig.com or 919-452-2304. —Byron Woods