This year’s big productions at the Contemporary American Theater Festival have governmental themes, though the two plays being staged at the Frank Center couldn’t be more different. “The Overwhelming” is a fast-paced drama set in Rwanda, 1994, with Americans swept up in the sudden factional upheaval that ripped that country apart. J.T. Rogers’s drama opened in London two years ago, and had a solid run in New York last fall.

The story follows a white American political scientist looking for a missing Rwandan friend; meanwhile, his African American wife and teenage son from an earlier marriage get into predicaments of their own. International intrigue is the mood as the American’s search becomes a tutorial on the dangers of the chaotic African nation. CATF artistic director Ed Herendeen directs, with Festival regular Lee Sellars (“The Pavilion”) in the role of the questing American.
If you missed the musical “Urinetown,” you can still get a sample of writer Greg Kotis’s scatological anti-government subversion in the comedy “Pig Farm.” It’s set on (you guessed it) a pig farm, where the animal population is soaring. Regulation becomes an issue; so does freedom, naturally. And love, and lust, and managing the runoff.

Kotis’s play may have the most distinctive linguistic style in the festival this year (although see “Wrecks,” below). It’s terse and deliberately absurd, with characters named Tom (the farmer), Tina (his wife), Tim (their hired hand), and Teddy (a government agent). Kotis has a few serious matters on his mind – he wrote an unexpectedly earnest essay to accompany the play – but much of “Pig Farm” is just for laughs. Sellars returns as Tom, and Herendeen directs.

Down the hill at the Studio, the plays are fixed in Northeastern vacation spots. Richard Dresser is back with the final installment of his “Happiness” trilogy, “A View of the Harbor” (following “Augusta” and “The Pursuit of Happiness”). The setting again is Maine, and Dresser – in a progression that follows the arc of the American Dream – finally makes his way from blue collar status through the middle class to the world of the bluebloods.

A new generation tries to make its way amid the claims of Old Money as Nick, a man in his 30s, wonders if he can keep toeing the family line. There’s a bit of a ghostly aura as family history is unearthed when Nick brings his girlfriend (Anne Marie Nest, of last year’s “My Name Is Rachel Corrie”) to meet his father and sister at their house near the sea. Money matters in this play – more contemplative than tart, which has been the tilt of this understated but discerning trilogy – but so does the past.

“Stick Fly” takes a look at Martha’s Vineyard, where a pair of highly educated African American men bring the new girlfriends home to meet the family (a Studio motif this year). One woman is the daughter of a prominent black intellectual; the other is white (Nest again). Tensions ensue, and not always for the expected reasons.

Like “A View of the Harbor,” “Stick Fly” is situated amid the gentry, with grown children challenging some of the standards set by their parents while dealing with inconsistencies of their own. Race and class are just two of the flashpoints playwright Lydia R. Diamond exploits as the two sons deal with their intimidating father, and with the taciturn young woman who keeps house for them all.

A four-play repertory has been the CATF standard, but this season the company is adding a fifth: “Wrecks.” This is the CATF’s first foray with Neil LaBute, the prolific, provocative writer-director of the films “In the Company of Men” and “The Shape of Things” and the plays “Reasons to Be Pretty” and “Fat Pig.” “Wrecks” is a monologue for a widower whose tale of love and loss displays a number of LaBute hallmarks – vivid and economical language, dark wit and a zingy twist. Kurt Zischke plays the grieving man, and Herendeen directs.

The brief show (70 minutes is the announced running time) opens a new venue for the CATF: it will be staged in the rehearsal studio of the new Center for Contemporary Arts.

All In The Family: Peggy McKowen and her brother Michael are working together this summer for CATF. In addition to her roles as Associate Producing Director, Peggy is Production Designer for WRECKS. Michael, a prop designer, will manage the prop shop.