BEST BETS Friday 1/5

LAGUNA BEACH

8pm

Theater

Family obligation is the issue in “The Price,” Arthur Miller’s play first staged in 1968. Victor Franz is a middle-age New York City cop who gave up his dream of becoming a scientist to support his father during the Great Depression. His older brother, Walter, left the family behind and emerged as a wealthy and respected surgeon. Now the estranged brothers meet to dispose of their parents’ furniture, long abandoned in the attic where the once-prosperous family moved after the 1929 market crash. Was Victor’s sacrifice noble or did he just waste his life? Did Walter sabotage his brother’s hopes? And can the brothers agree on a fair price for the attic’s horde? A remarkable old furniture dealer, symbolizing the resilience their father lacked, makes his pitch and awaits their answer while they turn a business transaction into a tense dissection of a family’s past.

* “The Price,” Laguna Playhouse’s Moulton Theater, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Previews Thursday and Friday. Regular performances begin Saturday. Through Feb. 4. $24 to $43. (949) 497-2787.

COSTA MESA

8pm

Pop Music

Barrelhouse was long a delightful oddity on the O.C. scene--a six-piece band playing Memphis-drenched soul replete with rich horn licks. If the recipe seemed too good to last, it was. The horns are now gone and Barrelhouse has become Rukus, which plays Friday in Costa Mesa. Now scaled back to a power-trio format, the group still has the advantage of lead singer Harliss Sweetwater (real name Steave Ascasio) and his Otis Redding-like voice, along with former Barrelhouse bassist Leonard Jones and drummer Cleotis Jackson playing music that’s said to be more rock-oriented with a punk edge.

* Rukus, Tiki Bar, 1700 Placentia Ave., Costa Mesa. With Juicy, Tunnel Fishin. 8 p.m. (949) 548-3533.

COSTA MESA

8pm

Theater

Edward Albee won the first of his three Pulitzer Prizes with the 1966 drama “A Delicate Balance.” Agnes and Tobias are a middle-age couple who, it would seem, live a refined, genteel, unencumbered life of suburban leisure. But Agnes’ drunken spitfire of a sister shares the house, and the friction intensifies when the couple’s spoiled daughter moves back home after the collapse of her fourth marriage. Any chance for balance teeters when Agnes and Toby’s best friends show up at the door, asking if they can move in because some strange, sudden undefinable existential terror has made their own home unlivable. SCR takes its first crack at an Albee play with a cast of veterans frequently seen on the theater’s stage.

* “A Delicate Balance,” South Coast Repertory’s Mainstage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Matinees Saturdays and Sundays, 2:30 p.m. Previews through Jan. 11; regular performances begin Jan. 12. $18 to $49, with a pay-what-you-will matinee Jan. 13. Through Feb. 11. (714) 708-5555.

FULLERTON

8 p.m.

Jazz

Virtuoso jazz trombonist-composers aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, which makes any Bill Watrous performance practically a must-see event. He’s the master of the valve and slide trombones as well as an accomplished composer and arranger--perhaps only Canada’s Rob McConnell is as skilled on both fronts. Watrous will be joined at Steamers Cafe by pianist Shelly Berg, bassist John Leitham and drummer Randy Drake.

* The Bill Watrous Quartet, Steamers Cafe, 138 W. Commonwealth Ave., Fullerton. 8 p.m. $5. (714) 871-8800.