Match Game

There's an entire industry devoted to helping you find the perfect mate. Online dating services, books and women's magazines all devote quite a bit of time and energy to devising strategies so that you don't die alone — and few Americans find this odd. Yet mention "arranged marriage," and people flip out. Your parents can't find a suitable spouse for you, but total strangers have the inside track? It's this cultural difference that fuels the comedy Birds, Bees and Biodata. Sanjay Sharma and Aditi Varma are twenty-something South Asians who are looking for love in the contemporary American method — parties, clubs, friends and random chance — while their parents are pushing for a more traditional match: one made by Mom and Dad. Are the old ways of doing things better than the new? Can you trust a dude to find true love on his own? (It's not like romance is the number-one thing on a young man's mind, after all.) Do Father and Mother know best? Find out when the South Asian Theater Company presents Birds, Bees and Biodata at 8 p.m. Friday and at 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday (November 21 and 22) at the Black Cat Theatre (2810 Sutton Boulevard, Maplewood; 314-781-8300 or www.southasiantheater.com). Tickets are $5.
Fri., Nov. 21; Sat., Nov. 22, 2008