MACHINE DE CIRQUE

Presented by ArtsEmerson. At the Emerson Paramount Mainstage, Boston, Sept. 21-Oct. 2. Tickets: $10-$85, 617-824-8400, www.artsemerson.org

Machine de Cirque fuses the exuberance and athleticism of circus acrobatics with the precision of engineering.

“I create sets that are well made and also practical for circus performers to use,’’ says founder and artistic director Vincent Dube, whose troupe performs at the Emerson Paramount Mainstage Sept. 21-Oct. 2. “Those are elements both artists and engineers understand.’’

Although Dube graduated from college with a degree in engineering, he says every summer when he was supposed to be working in an apprenticeship he was booked instead with a circus act or at a festival. After stints with Cirque du Soleil and touring with performance festivals, Dube decided to create his own company a few years ago. He called his brother, Raphael, who, with Yohann Trepanier was already part of the popular juggling/comedy duo Les Beaux Freres, as well as Ugo Dario, Maxim Laurin, and musician Frederic Lebrasseur. With this combination of artists and talent, he improvised a variety of routines in what he calls a “creation project.’’

“I brought together a group of strong personalities, and they became my creative partners,’’ Dube says. “When we were trying out different ideas, I was building the set, and kept adding a little more scaffolding, and a little more rope here and there, and it became a big mess. It looked like the end of the world, so we starting using that as a frame.’’

Onstage, the performers play characters who are focusing on survival in a post-apocalyptic world. As they deal with the challenges of being the only five people left and look for other survivors, they move through acts that include a trapeze, teeterboard, drum kit, ropes and pulleys, and more. The goal is to keep the focus on very human stories, Dube says, even as performers execute complicated routines.

“I like comedy based in a strong dramatic context,’’ Dube says. “I like going from the poetic to hearty laughter.’’

In addition to those strong emotions, Dube has integrated music into the acrobatics. Lebrasseur, who comes from the Quebec improv scene, has also composed music for theater artist Robert LePage.

“Often circus music is a soundtrack, or even when it’s live you don’t see the musicians,’’ he says. “With Frederic, the music is the act. Sometimes it’s just sound effects, sometimes it’s original music that gets worked into a performance, sometimes it’s improvised music that matches where we are.

“It’s good to put things together that people don’t expect,’’ Dube says. “But it’s most important to tell stories about these five individuals who are good friends and are able to show tenderness, annoyance — all of the emotions they have toward each other as they try to get through each day.’’

‘Miss Julie’ honed by Harbor Stage

Actress Brenda Withers says the focus of Harbor Stage’s production of “Miss Julie’’ at the Modern Theatre is less on the 19th century setting and more on the elements of the tormented relationship at the heart of the play.

“The beauty of Robert Kropf’s adaptation is that he distills rather than cuts,’’ says Withers, who plays the title role. “What comes through is the fundamental conflict between two damaged people trapped in a kitchen.’’

August Strindberg’s passionate play caused a scandal when it was first produced in the late 1800s, for its depiction of a privileged young woman whose affair with her father’s valet leads to her ruin. The Boston production is a remount of Harbor Stage’s summer run of the play at the company’s Wellfleet theater.

“The opportunity to return to a role is a great gift,’’ Withers says. “So often you have such a short rehearsal time, you often feel as the performance run is coming to an end you are just finding the nuances that make a character your own. You return to the role with an extra feeling of confidence.’’

While the social restrictions on a woman’s choices articulated in the play may feel outdated, Withers says the notion of privilege and how you use or abuse it remains relevant today. “The culture clash, and the notion of who is ‘upstairs’ and who is ‘downstairs,’ doesn’t really go away.’’

Strindberg’s play is filled with symbolism, which Withers admits can feel heavyhanded. But she says Kropf, who adapted the script and directs this production, focused on building the suspense in the story.

“He has a very minimalist aesthetic,’’ Withers says of her Harbor Stage colleague. “In rehearsal, he started taking props and set pieces away so that we don’t focus on the symbolism of a particular prop. You may already know how the story turns out, but the fascination is how this production is going to get there. I think audiences will say, ‘I saw that coming, but it still hurt.’ ’’

“Miss Julie’’ runs through Sept. 25 at Suffolk University’s Modern Theatre. Tickets: $15-$23, 866-811-4111, www.harborstage.com.

After Burrows, a transition

Allyn Burrows’s impending departure as artistic director at Actors’ Shakespeare Project hasn’t fazed the company’s executive producer, Kimberly Dawson.

“We are sad to see him go, but there has always been good camaraderie between Shakespeare & Company’’ — where Burrows will become artistic director in January — “and Actors’ Shakespeare Project. Allyn has made it clear he wants to strengthen that relationship.’’

The company, she says, is on stable ground. “We’re just about to open our season, and we have a solid audience base of 10,000 that we’d like to continue growing,’’ she says. The company’s first production of the new season, “Hamlet,’’ runs Oct. 5-Nov. 6 at the Church of the Covenant in Boston’s Back Bay.

Dawson says the company has already begun to set the wheels in motion to find Burrows’s replacement; a search committee will develop a timeline in the next few weeks.

“In the interim, we haven’t quite decided how to divide up Allyn’s responsibilities,’’ she says. “He is very much a hands-on artistic director who is in constant communication with members of the resident acting company no matter what they are working on, and he has been a great troubleshooter, willing to pick up a hammer and help build risers and do whatever is needed to get the show up.’’

MACHINE DE CIRQUE

Presented by ArtsEmerson. At the Emerson Paramount Mainstage, Boston, Sept. 21-Oct. 2. Tickets: $10-$85, 617-824-8400, www.artsemerson.org

Terry Byrne can be reached at trbyrne@aol.com.