"My Three Angels," the warm, family oriented comedy that just opened at St. Louis Actors' Studio, takes place at Christmas 1910.

But you can forget about snowmen, jingle bells and carolers in mittens and mufflers.

This is Christmas on a French penal colony in the tropics, where the temperature soars to 104 before breakfast and a small expatriate community struggles to get by. For example, a dreamy, unsuccessful merchant and his family feel nearly as trapped by circumstance as the men in prison stripes who hover above them, repairing their thatched roof.

Let's see, who else hovers above?

You guessed it. But if "My Three Angels," written in 1953 by Samuel and Bella Spewack, isn't especially subtle in its metaphors, it's still charming. Besides, Elizabeth Helman's direction is breezy enough and the cast fleet enough to compensate for a few creaks in a somewhat predictable story.

The whole play takes place in the Ducotel family's parlor. Felix Ducotel (Larry Dell), cheated out of his business in Cherbourg by an unscrupulous relative, is trying to make a go of this new life. He keeps up a cheery front for his devoted wife, Emilie (Penney Kols), and their marriageable daughter Marie Louise (Emily Baker), but he's not fooling anyone. They might cope as long as they have each other — but now the relative, the venomous Henri Trochard (Richard Lewis), a Gallic Ebenezer Scrooge — is about to arrive in their sweltering paradise, along with a nephew (Casey Boland) who once promised that he'd always love Marie Louise.

From their perch on the roof, the three convicts overhear the Ducotels' woes and determine to help them.

All the performers are wholehearted (including Teresa Doggett, who is hilarious as a shrewd customer and who also designed the yummy period costumes).

But the show belongs to the convicts, who get the best Christmas present they could hope for: a chance to taste the lives they long for, just for a few precious hours.

Jules (Garrett Bergfeld) establishes an entirely proper, warmly touching rapport with Emilie, the kind of wise, understanding wife he always longed for. Gallant young Alfred (Dan Mueller) simultaneously flirts with Marie Louise and the nephew's stylish wardrobe. And Joseph (Whit Reichert, in a show-stopping turn) uses his brilliant "business" instincts to an end that isn't honest but is somehow virtuous.

"Our world is just like yours," Jules tells Felix. "The only difference is, we got caught." "My Three Angels" gently poses always-relevant questions about the nature of "criminality." It doesn't come to any surprising answers, but it entertains us on the way.

"Jesus Hopped the 'A' Train," another play with a prison setting, also raises enduring questions about the nature of guilt — along with questions about faith, the existence of God and the difference, if there is one, between a man's soul and his actions. What with its incessantly profane language, its nonchronological action and its willingness to break the "wall" between actor and audience, it's a much more modern piece of work than the well-made "My Three Angels." (It's also 48 years younger.)

But it's not nearly as satisfying. Maybe that's because playwright Stephen Adly Guirgis, though far more passionate than the Spewacks, needs a dose of their discipline.

"'A' Train" is extremely repetitive, hammering home its none-too-subtle points, going off on tangents and taking much too long. It's just flabby. Although director Christina Rios draws good work from her cast — including Adam Flores and Terell W.J. Randall Sr. as inmates in protective custody in a New York prison and Elizabeth Graveman as a lawyer with issues of her own — she hasn't cut the play by, say, half. That's what it needs.

At least "'A' Train" is located in time, space and mood. That's more than you can say for "Whammy! The Seven Secrets to a Sane Self or Some Things That All People Ought to Know About the Nature and Function of the Self; Its Place in the Economy of Life, Its Proper Training and Its Righteous Exercise."

The whole play, conceived and directed by Chuck Harper, is exactly as clear as its title.

The actors, dressed in white, perform circus-style stunts and deliver monologues. The best of these, an account of corporal punishment delivered by Kate Frisina, is touching in its own right, but doesn't connect to anything else. Neither does Frisina's bizarre ... encounter ... with somebody dressed up like a banana.

You can guess what Harper and company were going for: a dreamlike piece in which the elements don't need logic to inspire vivid images or intense emotion. This kind of piece, often called performance art or devised work, can be arresting. But it has no margins; when it doesn't work, it shuts out its audience. And that's who's in the room.