Nostalgia is one of those rare pains that we love to inflict on ourselves. Everybody has an era they wish they could relive – maybe out of a yen for hoopskirts or men who knew how to wear hats. If you push a Democrat far enough, he won’t talk about the future, he’ll get misty over the popular vote in 2000. A.R. Gurney’s “Screen Play,” his newest political piece for the Flea, looks resolutely backward.

Staged as a “reading” of an unproduced screenplay, the Bats (the Flea’s cadre of young resident actors) read a script that fuses contemporary politics and “Casablanca.” It’s not the Bogey impressions alone, though, that make this a piece about the past. Considering the energy of the performers, and Mr. Gurney’s admirable commitment to topical dramas, it’s a bit of a disappointment to find no new arguments onstage.

In our not-so-distant future, oppressive evangelicals and an economic crisis brought on by the Iraq war are forcing citizens out in droves. In cities near a border, disappointed liberals look longingly toward freedom – in this case, from picturesque Buffalo into Canada. There Nick (Drew Hildebrand) tries to stay off the whiskey in his own bar, cultivates a friendship with a local cop, and thinks longingly of the girl who left him over the Florida recount.

Mr. Gurney’s tweak of the great classic does best when it’s moving fast: When evil Deputy Secretary Patch (John Fico) is hurling Southern-fried threats at Nick, or when Renzo (Kevin T. Moore) toadies up slimily to Nick. But the romance with Sal (Meredith Holzman) and its long back-story bog us down – even at 71 minutes, the play starts to feel long.

Mr. Hildebrand throws away his lines with aplomb (Sal: “Nick, I didn’t mean to come to Buffalo!” Nick: “Nobody does.”). Though his biography simply identifies him as an ex-U.S. naval officer, he seems born to snap out 1940s dialogue. Unfortunately, some of the secondary players seem less comfortable, and director Jim Simpson misses a trick by refusing to pipe in key snatches of music.

The real trouble is one of edge, as in the one that ought to be cutting, but here plays rather dull. When the marshaling anthem that replaces the “Marseillaise” is Bill Clinton’s campaign theme, “Thinking About Tomorrow,” it sounds an awful lot like living in the past.

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While Mr. Gurney gets mileage out of the political circus, the unabashed Cirque Eloize returns with the real thing to Midtown. The New Victory, showing its customary flair for children’s programming that adults will enjoy, tops its season with the Cirque’s “Rain.” With its spare, intelligent sets and rich sense of visual poetry, Cirque Eloize casts poor Cirque du Soleil completely in the shade. Instead of bombast, we get a sweet sense of childhood; instead of glitter, we get gold.

Only so many options are available to a circus that doesn’t employ animals or clowns, and we see them all: Strongwomen on trapeze, some astonishingly high flips launched from a see-saw, and a good amount of juggling and contortion. But this company elevates each piece well beyond athletics into dance, and beyond that to theater. Stephane Gentilini’s narration of his own suitcase-manipulation routine, for example, is almost overwhelmingly charming, and a number that employs giant copper hoops leaves your heart in your mouth.

“Rain” is subtitled “comme une pluie dans tes yeux,”(“like rain in your eyes”). Director Daniele Finzi Pasca’s program note tells us that this was a phrase in his hometown for the sadness that overwhelms you at sunset, that immediate feeling of loss felt in the presence of real beauty. Cirque Eloize’s final number actually sets aside the company’s physical prowess, floods the stage with sheets of water, and simply shows us 10 playmates laughing in the rain.

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A fellow denizen of the murky theatrical-dance border, the Chunky Move company is now at DTW with its own inspirational offering. The dizzying, astonishing “Tense Dave” doesn’t play on our inner innocence, though – it knows us for the alienated, violent, ridiculous creatures we are.

On a disorienting trip through genres from gothic romance to chopsocky, the shambling Dave (Brian Lucas) is understandably tense. His little world is a rotating turntable, divided by movable partitions. As it turns, strange tableaux swing into view – a girl in a nightgown wields a knife, or an intense young man suffocates himself with a plastic bag. Once Dave starts to wander, horror-struck, into their scenes, the emotional violence accelerates further, flinging characters on and off the whirling stage.

Co-creators Lucy Guerin, Michael Kantor, and Gideon Obarzanek use this creepy, creaking merry-go-round like a cinematic “montage,” letting images rapidly succeed one another. They also employ impressive tonal control, shifting effortlessly among poignancy, hilarity, and bone-crunching nastiness. The show is a miracle of production design and performance. Don’t miss it.

“Screen Play” until June 25 (41 White Street, between Broadway and Church Streets, 212-352-3101).

“Rain” until July 10 (209 W. 42nd Street, 212-239-6200).

“Tense Dave” until June 11 (219 W. 19th Street, between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, 212-924-0077).