ORONO – You don’t have to be nuts to enjoy the latest theatrical offering from the University of Maine’s School of Performing Arts – but it helps. And if you are, you’ll have some company.

UMaine’s theatre department opens its season with a production of “Melancholy Play” by Sarah Ruhl. Directed by Rosalie Purvis, this gleefully strange farce runs through October 22 at Hauck Auditorium on the University of Maine campus in Orono. For more information, you can visit the SPA website here.

The play is an exploration of the complexities of emotion, of how the way we feel can impact not just ourselves, but the people around us. It’s a look at the delicacy of interpersonal dynamics and the manner in which those dynamics can shift and evolve as the ties that bind us grow tighter or looser … or just plain weirder.

It is also wildly funny, packed with absurdities that only accentuate the paean to emotionality that rests at its core. All of this brought to vivid, surreal life by a passionate young cast whose talent is second only to their fearlessness.

ORONO – A modern take on a classic myth is currently washing over an Orono stage.

True North Theatre is presenting Sarah Ruhl’s “Eurydice” at the Cyrus Memorial Pavilion Theater on the University of Maine campus. Directed by Tricia Hobbs, this reimagining of the Greek myth of Orpheus is running through June 30.

This play demonstrates once again the artistic flexibility and creative range of True North. While the company itself is still young, the people involved bring a significant depth of experience to all facets of the theatremaking process. Whether they’re tackling American classics like “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” or broad British farces like “Table Manners,” True North almost always hits its mark.

That trend continues with “Eurydice,” a play that is demanding both performatively and technically. It’s a piece with a tremendous amount to say about love and loss and the sacrifice that leads to the latter is often made in full service to the former. It is also darkly funny and unabashedly weird. A challenging work for sure, but as usual, True North proves fully capable of rising to meet it.