Abusive husbands take a deserved beating in two drastically different but similarly pointed plays with animalistic qualities being performed on a rotating repertory schedule by second-year students in the FSU/Asolo Conservatory.

Lauren Gunderson, one of the nation’s most produced playwrights, takes a humorous approach to tell a story of a wife who uses her vivid imagination and two friends to get revenge on her husband in “Exit, Pursued by a Bear.” (The play’s title is from a famous stage direction in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale.”)

Marisela Treviño Orta’s “Wolf at the Door” is much darker and more poetic, fusing fantasy and magical realism. It is about a woman trying to give her often brutal and demanding husband a chance to realize the family feeling he has longed for, even though his own past as a neglected child doesn’t allow him to understand what that could mean.

The story that unfolds in “Wolf” is harder to watch, but it’s the more fluid and thoughtfully realized of the two productions. And in some ways the stories feed off each other, at least for those who see both productions.

Orta’s writing is lyrical yet real, moving and painful, and guest director Colleen Rua, a faculty member at the University of Florida, makes full use of the power of Orta’s words in her staging, even in occasional moments when the acting doesn’t meet the tension or heightened emotions.

The story begins with Katriana Veléz as a very pregnant Isadora about to give birth weeks early to her first child after she was violently assaulted by her husband, Séptimo (Edgardo Solorio). Tragedy builds on tragedy through the birth and the unexpected appearance of a wolf-woman named Yolot (guest actress Amy Vargas Rivera), who is also pregnant and on some kind of mission. We hear her brothers howling for her in the background.

Veléz appears timid and understandably nervous about the baby and how her husband will treat her and the child, but encouraged by her longtime housekeeper and childhood nanny Rocio (Jacquelyn Morales) she finds an inner strength to stand up to Séptimo.

Solorio plays Séptimo as a jumble of mixed emotions. He’s not the bellowing type and can seem to be affectionate, but his own troubled family history has made him feel unwanted, and any minor slight fuels an explosive rage. Morales is the determined mother figure, nurturing Isadora to protect herself and the child, even if it means tearing apart her marriage.

Rivera makes the most of her unusual and challenging role as a wolf in human form. Yolot has her own mission and purpose that forever changes the lives in the well-detailed hacienda designed by Christopher McVicker.

McVicker also designed the mismatched furniture that makes up the living room and kitchen of a home in North Georgia for “Exit, Pursued by a Bear.” That’s where we first see Austin Ridley as Kyle Carter strapped into a recliner with duct tape, his mouth also covered.

He plays the husband of Nan Carter (Corrie Owens) who has invited her actress/stripper friend Sweetheart (guest actress Jamie Saunders) and good friend Simon Beaufort (Alan Kim) over to help re-enact scenes from her marriage like a play to torment Kyle. It’s all a prelude to something much darker.

The story is fanciful and broad. Kyle has been a beast and Nan has felt trapped with no money to leave him. 

The production, staged by Michelle M. Aguillon, sometimes overreaches, though the actors are committed even when they’re not as grounded as you might want. Saunders is delightful as the eternally upbeat Sweetheart (or Peaches), and Kim’s performance ranges from camp to consoling friend with some neat twists. When he’s given a chance to speak, Ridley allows you to see how Kyle charmed Nan, even if his explosive nature overwhelms the niceties. Owens is playful, plotting, mischievous and scared as Nan. 

These plays have an impact on their own, that grows if you also see “Grandma Gatewood Took a Walk” at Florida Studio Theatre. Grandma is another woman with an abusive husband, but she has a different approach to dealing with him. You might start to think of February as Get Back at Men Month. You might not like the methods they use, but there’s no question that you support their reasoning.

“Exit, Pursued by a Bear” by Lauren Gunderson. Directed by Michelle M. Aguillon, runs through March 8. Reviewed Feb. 8. “Wolf at the Door” by Marisela Treviño Orta’s runs through March 7. Reviewed Feb. 11. Cook theatre, FSU Center for the Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota. Tickets are $40. asolorep.org; 941-351-8000.