1) Swimming in the Shallows, the Washington Ensemble Theater show that runs Thursdays-Mondays until March 6 up on 19th Avenue (the place that used to be the Little Theater). I have been hearing about how great WET’s shows are for a while now, but I kept stupidly missing them — I’m still kicking myself for not seeing Crave — and so I went to see this one. Annie Wagner reviewed it in last week’s paper, and Brendan Kiley has a Stranger Suggests item on it in the paper that comes out today, but I just want to join them and say: This show is funny. The cast is great. The set is simple. The story is: man falls in love with a shark. Some other stuff happens too. It doesn’t pretend to be big, important theater, but you will be surprised how well it’s done. There’s a slow-mo scene that’s incredible. Tickets are $10-$15. Bring a date.

2) Dark Room, the Crispin Spaeth dance piece playing Fridays and Saturdays (three shows per night) through March 4 at Western Bridge. It’s about a half hour long, you sit on bean bags, the place is pitch black, and you’re given night-vision goggles. But the dancers aren’t. They can’t see a damn thing. It’s incredible they’ve figured out how to dance together in the dark — and it’s interesting the way the floor becomes another dance partner, since it’s the only thing they can count on. The music is restrained beeps, beats, shudderings — I kept thinking of Radiohead’s Amnesiac, minus words — and the total effect is spectral and insomniac. When the goggles can’t find any light in the room whatsoever, they fill with this snowy fuzz. After the show, my date and I went out and stood on the train tracks outside Western Bridge and tried to recreate some of the things the dancers had done, but even with the advantage of a nearby streetlight, we couldn’t. Tickets are $10 and available here.