ASHLAND — Two wars, two dramas — a weekend in Ashland watching “Coriolanus” and “Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter” at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is enough to confound the most ardent pacifist.

Two soldiers, two genders — Coriolanus was a Roman patrician, Jenny, an American volunteer.

He was plain old Caius Martius, before he utterly destroyed the town of Corioli and won its name as tribute.

Jenny was a Marine. She was a plain, boots-on-the-ground Iraqi Freedom soldier, before a mistake in judgment sent her home with a prosthetic leg.

Each of these plays is performed in the OSF New Theater, a 300-seat, flexible space where actors are mere feet from the audience, and the sight of tears carries as easily to the back row as the sound of machine gun fire.

The play “Coriolanus” is an exciting choice for an election year. Our national roots reside in Rome, and to see Shakespeare’s tribunes manipulate a plebeian crowd feels a lot like watching an American politician holding court in a school gymnasium.

Both plays are performed in modern dress. The 5th-century Roman soldiers of “Coriolanus” use laser rifle scopes, while their general’s son plays nearby, in thrall to his Gameboy. The tribunes grab their cell phones and Blackberries whenever trouble calls, and the rough and ragtag enemy Volscians could be seamlessly swapped for the enemy Jenny Sutter met in combat. Played with stiff-legged pride and military macho, actor Danforth Comins embodies the soldier hero. Coriolanus is at the peak of his physical powers, he has been raised by his patrician mother to serve the state, and he proves immediately and repeatedly that he is a leader of soldiers. During a precisely choreographed fight early in the play, Comins and actor Michael Elich (as Aufidius) battle hand-to-hand: their flashing knives, grunts and vicious kicks are frighteningly up close and personal.

The story of Coriolanus is one of betrayal. The common people betray their hero’s notion of self respect, and he, dumbfounded and enraged, betrays his family and his state by leaving Rome. His mother then persuades him to betray his new allies, the Volscians, in order to save the city. Coriolanus is, in turn, betrayed by the Volscians at the cost of his life.

“Coriolanus” explores its topical themes with a pithy relevance that proves director Laird Williamson’s call for a contemporary setting was an organic choice, not an artificial concept.

The OSF production of “Welcome Home, Jenny Sutter” is a world premiere that continues in Ashland only until June 20. Cast and crew will travel to Washington, D.C., in July, to present the show at the Kennedy Center. Julie Marie Myatt’s script tells a contemporary war story, effectively leaving out the war. We meet Jenny (Gwendolyn Mulamba) in a bus station; an isolated and prickly vet who needs some quiet time, some transition time, before returning to her mother and young children.

She finds a friend in the streetwise, frenetically chatty Lou (Kate Mulligan), who whisks Jenny off to Slab City, a former Marine camp in the California desert now inhabited by drifters and oddballs: a place about as far removed as possible, from the demands and discipline of military life.

In Slab City, Lou explains, expectations are low and spirits are high.

But in Slab City, we find, everyone is wounded and no one has all the answers. These people are the recognizable leftovers from other wars — the foreign and domestic battles that continuously rage. And their hands-off attitude is exactly what Jenny needs, if she is to heal.

This OSF production was directed by Jessica Thebus and features exquisite timing, a transformative set and nearly perfect staging. The cast is pitch-perfect for this tough and endearing play, and earned a standing ovation at the April 19 matinee.

Coriolanus would have thought Jenny Sutter brave. And stupid. And Jenny? In Slab City, she wouldn’t have given him the time of day. But I expect she would have followed him to war.

Teri Albert reviews art and artists for The World. Comments or story ideas are welcome, and can be e-mailed to malbert@uci.net.