What this says about the state of America I don’t know ... or maybe don’t want to know. But for the first time since I started attending Genesius Guild’s season-closing comedies more than a decade ago, director/adapter Don Wooten’s political jabs and jokes – here in service of Aristophanes’ The Birds – were less ridiculous, much less ridiculous, than current, real-world politics. I may have left Friday’s opening-night performance wishing it were more biting, but in retrospect, in this particular year, playing it safe may have been the smartest way to go.

Theatre

The Fantasticks

Richmond Hill Barn Theatre

Thursday, August 11, through Sunday, August 21

On August 11, Geneseo’s Richmond Hill Barn Theatre opens its new production of The Fantasticks, the first musical produced at the venue since 2011. It’s scheduled for eight performances through August 21. But if ticket sales prove especially excellent, maybe the show will run for an additional 17,154, thereby tying the world record for “longest-running musical” currently held by ... The Fantasticks.

BAD MOMS

Despite the film’s silliness and inconsequentiality, the experience of Bad Moms does prompt an almost existential question: If a crummy comedy makes you laugh out loud at least three-dozen times, can it even be considered crummy in the first place?

Friday, July 22, 9:55 a.m.-ish: Few things get me more psyched for a quadruple-feature – or, more accurately, get me less dreading one – than knowing my day’s first screening will be over in a scant 80 minutes. So I enter director David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out feeling pretty good. Somewhat incredibly, I exit feeling really good, because this hour-20 horror trifle gives you just what you want from these things and too rarely do: a creepy and clever premise, a snappy pace, a bunch of good scares, a few strong portrayals, and a relative lack of eye-rolling stupidity.