Two shows opened for two different Sacramento theaters this weekend, set 40 years apart in very different locations and while each has its own unique cast and director, both plays have surprising underlying similarities.

Both are essentially two-character plays. Both have a hysterical, unreasonable and totally self-centered female character. And both women become entwined with unsuspecting, clueless men.

The Sacramento Theatre Company’s “Owl and the Pussycat” opened Saturday night on their small, intimate Pollock stage. As soon as the curtain rises, the audience finds itself in 1964 San Francisco. When is the last time you heard the word rat fink?

“The Owl and the Pussycat” was writer Bill Manhoff’s only venture into live theater. Manhoff primarily wrote for some of televisions best-known shows, such as “The Real McCoys,” “Leave it to Beaver” and "Petticoat Junction.” In the 70s he worked on the groundbreaking “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son.”

“The Owl and the Pussycat” might well have been Manhoff’s early move toward what was no less popular but much edgier television.

The play originally opened in 1965 with Alan Alda and African American actress Diana Sands playing the lead roles.The first interracial kiss on Broadway added to its groundbreaking status.

In 1970 “The Owl and the Pussycat” was released as a film. It had a heavily revised plot with screenplay by Buck Henry. George Segal and Barbara Streisand starred. The star power trumped the story.

This STC production goes back to the original play and without an overpowering celebrity presence, the story really comes to the forefront. This is not to say that there isn’t great acting here.

Doris is played by Bay area actor Lyndsy Kail, who comes directly from her STC performance as Cecily in “The Importance of Being Earnest."

Doris is a would-be actress/model whose day job is part-time prostitute. Kail’s Doris blows in like a tornado with no concern of what is in its way or the damage it is doing.

She shows up pounding on the door of Felix Sherman in the middle of the night after being tossed out of her apartment because Shermann told Doris’s landlord the nature of her work.

Shermann is played by Timothy Orr, a regular at the former Foothill Theater and an actor at The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival along with performing in many local shows.  Sherman is a writer whose life is filled with rejection letters and has a day job as a bookstore clerk. Orr is no less facile at expressing a wide range of emotions as Kail, just different emotions.

The other character is the unseen older gentleman upstairs who regularly pounds on the floor and yells about the commotion going on below him.

STC’s award-winning and new artistic director Matt K. Miller directs. His respect for the material and his cast is evident. The story and its lessons come through strong. As a talented actor himself, Miller brings out the best in Kail and Orr, letting their talent shine through.

Jessica Minnihan’s costumes and Jarrod Bodensteiner’s (set and lighting design) set authentically take us back to the style of the 60s. Bodensteiner’s set is very detailed by necessity.The Pollock is a rare venue where the audience walks across the stage to their seats getting a close up look at the design elements.

Stage manager Suzanne Tyler’s spot-on cueing paired with sound design (a multiple effort that included Matt K. Miller and William Myers)  are integral to a lot of the humor.

We jump 40-plus years forward for B Street Theatre’s Mainstage opening of “Northport Cottage: A Comedy for the Holidays.”

“Northport Cottage” is the latest in a long series of plays written by B Street producing artistic director/cofounder Buck Busfield for the holiday season.

Buck Busfield has a great ear for dialogue and insight into the human condition. He also confided in his introduction in the program that he wrote “Northport Cottage” with the specific actors who were cast in mind. Although Busfield grew up in the locations that are the settings for “Northport Cottage” only the location is autobiographical.

Longtime B Street actor Kurt Johnson plays QD, a soft-spoken average Joe with an understated accent from his Kentucky background. QD doesn’t have a clue what awaits him when he opens his car door to a female hitchhiker outside of Detroit.

In hops Kellin Delahanty. She quickly tosses her luggage and her life’s baggage in QD’s car. With absolutely no concern for where QD is headed she informs him that they are going to Northport Village, a tourist village on Lake Michigan. She adds that she must be there by the end of the next day, Dec. 21.

As the play progresses it becomes clear as Kellin continues to unload her baggage on QD as they journey into the night that some how by being at Northport Cottage she she will come to terms with her life’s problems that she believes were set in motion during a family winter vacation on that date 20 years ago. 

New York actor Dana Brooke plays Kellin Delahanty. Brooke has appeared in several B Street productions, most recently “This is Our Youth” and “Lonesome West.” Here, Kellin is incredibly self-centered, intense, at times irritating but very funny.

Mitch Agruss plays several characters the duo meet along the way. Agruss, who has had his Equity card since 1947, has numerous major stage and pioneering television productions. Since coming to Sacramento he has become a beloved actor.

To loud applause and cheering, Agruss won two Elly Awards this fall for his roles in “Endgame” and “Krapp’s Last Tape” for Actors Theatre of Sacramento. Each time he appears in the play as another character (from a Michigan State Trooper to the caretaker of the title Northport Cottage), the audience can’t help but chuckle.

Catherine Frye’s imaginative and very functional set, aided by Jerry Montoya’s lighting easily create a sense of place – whether the characters are traveling down the road or stopping at locations along the way.

Paulette Sand-Gilbert’s costumes Kellin and QD in contemporary winter clothing while costuming Agruss in everything from Michigan State Trooper to indian chief.  

Sound design (not credited in the program) adds a great deal of atmosphere, not to mention humor. 

Buck Busfield, with so much control as producer, playwright and direction, has produced another show that totally lives up to the expectations and standards of B Street Theatre’s loyal audience.

Both of the shows that opened this weekend have much in common despite the differences in era and the characters’ stories. They both also possess high production values, great acting and direction that has come to be expected of these Sacramento theatre companies.

Choose between them? See them both and expand your experience of what it is to be human in any decade.