If the Moon Falls by Dorothy Dittrich. Directed by Sarah Rodgers. Two by Alexander Ferguson. Directed by Johnna Wright. Back to Berlin by Vern Thiessen. Directed by Johnna Wright. A Solo Collective production. At Performance Works until Saturday, May 14

In this evening of one-acts collectively titled Fear Some, three actors perform solo pieces by three different writers. Yes, there are some stylish production elements, but this event is all about the words and the performances. You get hits of such pure acting and pure writing that you can't help but feel moments of pure pleasure.

All of the scripts investigate the subject of fear. Wisely, the producers have saved the best play for last. In Vern Thiessen's Back to Berlin, a middle-aged man takes a trip to the German capital with his elderly father, who once worked as a courier for the Nazis. Most of us over 40 will recognize this territory: the love-hate relationship with a parent who's facing death, the yearning to resolve conflicts and suspicions that feel like they'll never go away.

We see the son goading his dad, the father denying the horrors of the Holocaust, and the two of them pissing together, drunk. The tenderness that comes is moving partly because it emerges from such prickly masculinity.

Scott Bellis, the actor, is fantastic. He transforms so subtly and so completely from patriarch to offspring and back again that it's like watching a kind of spiritual possession. Thiessen's script is rhythmically sophisticated; it's full of the eccentricities and incomplete thoughts of real speech, and Bellis never hits a false note with any of them.

Dorothy Dittrich's If the Moon Falls, which opens the evening, also benefits from a splendid performance. Bridget O'Sullivan plays a woman named Louise who is sitting in a kind of waiting room in the afterlife. On Earth, doctors are struggling to revive Louise's body, but she's not eager to return to it; she has always been so frightened that she hasn't known much pleasure.

Dittrich's script has a lovely wry tone. Through Louise, she parodies the whining excuses we all use to justify inaction. And Dittrich has written some hilarious individual lines including, "Having a nervous breakdown is not unlike being cheated on; you're usually the last to know."

O'Sullivan performs with such sly wit, vocal variety, and emotional vulnerability that it's impossible not to like Louise.

Despite her best efforts, though, If the Moon Falls sags slightly. That's because its theme isn't grounded in an overarching story or substantial relationships. In Back to Berlin, an adventure leads to redemption. And there are interpersonal dynamics-between the main character and his dad, and, importantly, between the main character and the audience. Thiessen doesn't reveal it until the end, but the son has a reason to be speaking to us. Louise refers to her husband, but he's never three-dimensional, and when she talks, she addresses thin air.

So does the toddler in Alexander Ferguson's Two, which is the evening's weakest piece. The little guy seems to have been abandoned, but because Two comes right after Dittrich's play, we soon figure out that he's dead.

Ferguson's writing is self-consciously poetic-"Where are Mama's floating blue eyes?"-and director Johnna Wright and actor Josh Drebit fail to find a satisfying voice for the protagonist, who possesses a strange blend of adult and child sensibilities.

Like so many grownup performers portraying children, Drebit overacts. He seems to have approached the role from the outside; he makes the main character, Two, a mannered clown instead of a deeply innocent soul. It's a relief when the talented actor becomes Papa, telling bedtime stories to his sons; at last, he assumes a recognizably human voice. These tales are also the most engaging passages of writing, wild inventions that tell us a lot about how this father relates to his children.

But you know what? There are so many riches here that even analyzing the faults is a pleasure. Fear Some delivers a kind of intimacy that you only find in the theatre.