Julius Caesar: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend us your butts: William Shakespeare's play about the fall of Rome's most storied dictator comes to the New Theatre as the latest installment in its Shakespeare & Friends Festival. The Bard wrote The Tragedy of Julius Cæsar, more commonly known as Julius Caesar, in 1600. It's the first of his Roman plays, portraying the conspiracy against Caesar, his assassination, and its aftermath, focusing on Marcus Brutus's role. This version is adapted and directed by Roberto Prestigiacomo. The last play in the festival, Saint Joan, opens August 16. — Frank Houston Through August 5. New Theatre, 4120 Laguna St., Coral Gables; 305-443-5909, www.new-theatre.org.
Con Las Maletas Hechas: In a time when a tube of hair gel or a nail file can trigger alarms on a short flight, Brazil's Teatro Pe De Vento delivers a silent scream. The company shies from the contentious baggage of flying in a post-9/11 world, choosing instead to create a hilarious, impressionistic work focusing on the squabbles between two women sharing a bench in an anonymous airport waiting lounge. Con Las Maletas Hechas (Bags All Packed), presented by the International Hispanic Theater Festival and written and directed by Pepe Nuñez, pits a pair of ditzes whose inability to park their asses together peacefully leads to conflict after conflict at dizzying speeds. As the tiff between the tarts goes terminal, the comedy crescendos into a catfight on the concourse evoking nightmares of a soused Johnny Winton in drag. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus 8:30 p.m. Saturday, July 21, and 5:00 p.m. Sunday, July 22. Studio Theater, Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami; 305-949-6722, www.carnivalcenter.org
Entranas: Part of the International Hispanic Theater Festival's eclectic lineup, Entrails is a timely and adroitly mounted tragicomedy exploring a modern-day woman's search for answers to what happened to her grandfather, who disappeared during the Spanish Civil War and was never spoken of by her family again. Alone in a hospital and waiting to give birth to her first child, Sole remembers the people and places that have been important to her during flashbacks to the past nine months of a pregnancy that has altered her life. Staged by Barcelona's Teatro Titzina and directed by Stefan Metz, the production brings the young mother's memories to life by shifting characters with quicksilver speed in a dynamic example of physical theater delving into the ravages of war. As the child grows within Sole, the borders between reality and imagination blur until the past and future connect with spellbinding effect. The unborn baby and an inner dialogue with her vanished grandfather lead Sole to ponder a future war from which she herself might not escape in this Spanish-language play deeply steeped in humanistic themes. — Carlos Suarez De Jesus 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, July 20 and 21. Prometeo Theater, Miami Dade College, Wolfson Campus, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami; 305-237-3762, www.teatroavanti.com.