Conceived and directed by Sharon Greene, this noble meditation on noble futility–written and performed by Greene, Shawn Huelle, and Jay Torrence–has its heart in the right place but never quite achieves the associative synergy it seeks. Riffing elliptically off Cervantes’s novel rather than retracing, recasting, or unpacking it, the performers intertwine two main narratives: one revisiting Greene’s tenure with Planned Parenthood, the other recounting Huelle’s drive to the Arctic Ocean with a crazy friend. (Torrence heads up a puzzling, mostly wordless third story about being neither fish nor fowl, or a flightless bird, or a fish out of water, or something.) In this show the Neo-Futurists venture further into kinetic-art territory than usual, with frequently affecting results. But an uneasy mix of obliquity and formlessness hobbles the piece’s best ideas–and the pall of this blue city’s electoral ineffectuality hangs over the make-the-best-of-it rest. Through 12/18: Thu-Sat 8 PM. No show Thu 11/25. Neo-Futurarium, 5153 N. Ashland, 773-275-5255. $10-$15; Thu “pay what you can.”