Backstage Nerves Through the Ages The theater is like an old Jewish mother in a Woody Allen film: always melodramatically, nonsensically on the verge of death. The cause of the affliction, however, varies. Some say ticket prices. Others blame those miserable critics. Television and the Internet are occasionally villains in this drama. But for a historically minded set, a crucial data point in this tragedy is the decline of the repertory, a resident company of actors of the sort that, say, Shakespeare used at the Globe. Gregory Costanzo Dominic Cuskern in "And Away We Go," at the Pearl Theater. "And Away We Go," a new play by Terrence McNally, whose work displays a clear love and commitment to the stage, is a tribute to the repertory. Presented at the Pearl Theater, which has a repertory, this time-traveling backstage drama zips from ancient Greece at the premiere of Aeschylus" "Oresteia" to the opening of Chekhov's "Seagull" to the American premiere of Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," which was, oddly, in Coral Gables, Fla. Jack Cummings III, a co-founder and the artistic director of the Transport Group, directs. Previews start Tuesday, 555 West 42nd Street, Clinton, 212-563-9261, pearltheatre.org.