After being told their lease wasn’t going to be renewed, the Crystal City-based theater company is getting a three-year extension.

The humble hunchback gets a star performance.

It’s a disquieting interpretation that sometimes borders on the sadistic.

This month brings two options for dark Irish comedy to the stage, plus a number of other shows.

Synetic Theatre’s take on the legend of Don Quixote sometimes feels like a thrilling adventure story. Sometimes, it’s an exaggerated, goofy exercise, almost a children’s tale. And sometimes…well, sometimes, Sancho Panza is delivering a crude, discordant pseudo-rap about his newly ordained governorship to his subjects, who are grinding away below him, as if at a rave.

Balloons. Tricycles. Clowns. A rave party. A stage covered with coarse sand. And not a spoken word all night. Why, of course — this must be a production of…King Lear?! But banish any worries, because this is a production by those masters of the unlikely reimagining, Synetic Theater.

John Milosich in Metamorphosis. When your play is centered around a man who transforms into a giant insect, things are either going to get really interesting or super cheesy. Luckily, Synetic takes things in the former direction. And no, they’re not bringing Jeff Goldblum to the stage in a musical version of “The Fly” or anything; this is a theater production of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, directed by Derek Goldman, who previously collaborated with Synetic on…

Photo by Raymond Gniewek, courtesy Synetic It feels pretty sadistic to voluntarily let someone put you through hell, but Synetic is making a pretty good case for it. The Arlington-based theater company’s production of Dante feels less like a theatrical production and more like you’re actually a full-blown witness the journey the famous Inferno character makes with Virgil through the depths of the underworld. And the journey isn’t an easy one – scenes depicting…

In Synetic’s production of Host and Guest, even the pantomimed act of suiting up for war is a thing of lyrical beauty. The show is based on an epic Georgian poem and a remounting of a previous production in response to the recent conflict in the region. The story of Host and Guest is a rather thin one – hunters from warring clans meet in forest. One brings the other home as his guest, but…

You have to give Ben Cunis props for sheer athleticism. The co-star of Synetic Theater’s production of Carmen spends a good portion of the production hoisting himself over, under and through the winding metal, cage-like set constructed for the production. It’s an impressive feat (enough to generate more than a few exclamations of “Oh my!” from some of the Kennedy Center’s older patrons). But when he’s not showing off his strength, Cunis is equally adept…