Searching for Eden: The Diaries of Adam and Eve by James Still and starring Erin Slazak and Keith Wharton opens tonight.

In the imaginations of Still and Twain, the Garden of Eden is a place where the battle of the sexes begins, where language is deliciously invented, and wehere loneliness and heartbreak are poignantly discovered. The "first couple" later returns to Eden in an attempt to recapture the primal passions of their youth. At its heart, Searching for Eden is about the pleasures and terrors of knowing one person-and being known by that person-for a long, long time.

Polish Joke, by David Ives opens tonight. A comedy about ethnic identity and the eternal American search for "roots." Jasiu (thirtyish) is a Polish-American who has been taught not to value his own roots, so he decides to make his own roots, reinventing himself first as a sort of non-ethnic everyman, then as an "Irishman." Jasiu's adventures-alternately zany and heartbreaking-take him through a job interview with an Ur-Wasp; to an attempt to become a Catholic priest; to a flower shop where he can't get service because he is weirdly invisible; to a doomed love affair with a Jewish woman; to a wacky Irish travel agency where he has to prove that he is Irish before he can buy a ticket; and to a doctor more interested in ethnic pain than in healing. Jasiu is also bedeviled by a reappearing Polish relative and has to face off with the ghost of a dead Polish patriot. In the end, by trying to get away from his ethnic background, Jasiu finds out who he is and what it means to be "a Pole."