Days of Atonement, Israeli Stage, Deane Hall, Calderwood Pavilion, Boston Center for the Arts, through June 25. 617-933-8600 or bostontheatrescene.com ; israelistage.com.

Yom Kippur is a time for the deepest introspection and striving for full repentance. Quite fittingly, Israeli playwright Hannah Azoulay-Hasfari's moving drama "Days of Atonement" has the four very different Ohana sisters come together on the eve of this holiest of Jewish holidays to forgive each other and themselves. Israeli Stage's powerfully disturbing North American premiere at the Boston Center for the Arts, sensitively staged by company artistic director Guy Ben-Aharon, will have theatergoers of all religious persuasions tapping into memories of personal family reunions called up by this very insightful play.

Tellingly, Azoulay-Hasfari's play is entitled "Days of Atonement," not "Day of Atonement." Traditionally, Yom Kippur is the last and more important of the Ten Days of Repentance that begin with the Jewish New Year. At the same time, after all, the play begins on the eve of the holiday with youngest sister and film student Amira using a camera to make a family video record (as well as turn the camera on audience members, suggesting the universal implications of such records). After the sounding of the shofar (ram's horn) at the end of Yom Kippur, the atonement of each sister is likely to extend for more 'days' as their shared revelations during the holiday bode well for more self-examination to come.

Those revelations emerge as siblings Malka, Evelyn and Fanny join Amira in Netivot, a Southern Israel city founded in the mid-1950's by Moroccan and Tunisian immigrants, joined by Russian and Ethiopian counterparts in the 1990's. What begins with a search for their ostensibly missing Moroccan mother (Azoulay-Hasfari also Moroccan) ultimately becomes their own search for self and a dramatically satisfying arrival at a solidarity that transcends their personality conflicts and religious differences. That search includes Malka's doubts about her husband's fidelity, ultra-Orthodox Evelyn's questions about the limits on honoring a bad parent, business woman Fanny's resentment at being perceived as incorrigibly promiscuous and Amira's psychological issues. Jackie Davis is vividly conflicted as Malka and Adrianne Krstansky affectingly self-doubting as Evelyn. Dana Stern convinces as vulnerable Amira. Ramona Lisa Alexander is a standout capturing Fanny's confidence as a secular professional and her complex emotional state.

Ben-Aharon has smartly stripped down production values to hone in on a family odyssey in its own way as harrowing as that of the Tyrone brothers in "A Long Day's Journey into Night." Call "Days of Atonement" a theater blessing in Israeli Stage's ongoing celebration of women.

(Playwright Azoulay-Hasfari will be engaging in post-performance dialogue Thursday and Friday.)

Is trimming a Broadway hit unthinkable? It may surprise Lerner and Loewe fans that the legendary collaborators on "My Fair Lady" and "Camelot" made cuts themselves to the latter musical during its 1960 Boston tryout. After all, gifted wit Noel Coward himself reputedly described its earlier Toronto four and one half hour version as "longer than the 'Gotterdammerung' and not nearly as funny."

Quite fittingly, Emily Altman., President of the Frederick Loewe Foundation, opened the door to a Lyric Stage Company of Boston trimmed down production of "Camelot" after enjoying the company's inspired if somewhat slender recent edition of "My Fair Lady" under the smart direction of Scott Edmiston. Lyric Stage Company producing artistic director Spiro Veloudos seized the opportunity, and the result is an earnest revival that shines most brightly after the entrance of troublemaking Mordred.

The adaptation Lyric Stage Company is staging may have been trimmed by adaptor David Lee. Even so, the elimination of the likes of Merlin in this 2009 edition does not mean the absence of the show's majestic messages about human decency and right defeating mere might. Ed Hoopman's generally authoritative Arthur proves most majestic as the king confronts vice-embracing Mordred and struggles to deal with the dangerous romance of Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot. Maritza Bostic is affectingly vulnerable in the later going but needs more jauntiness as the Queen relishes the joys of Camelot in the early going. Her delivery of "The Simple Joys of Maidenhood" ought to be more vibrant. The strongest voices and performances are those of Jared Troilo as Lancelot and Davron S. Monroe as Sir Lionel. Troilo's rendition of "If Ever I Would Leave You" has the passion and heart one expects of Lancelot. Director Veloudos makes jousting Lancelot's miraculous revival of Sir Lionel singularly believable. Once Rory Boyd as Mordred fires up the knights in the second act, Lyric Stage Company's "Camelot" finally takes a quantum leap to real exuberance.