Reviews for The Vortex Performances
Review: Sunny Days by Reina Hardy at The Vortex
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 12, 2024
Reina Hardy's sprawling HAPPY DAYS has a Brechtian approach to evil, to innocent joys, and to magic that is as endangered as we all are.
Sunny Days is virtually all concept -- an awkward multicourse serving of bitter and sweet that's made palatable by Rudy Ramirez's direction, inventive puppetry, and the dedicated cast. I can imagine playwright Reina Hardy at her desk, musing on the sweetness of Sesame Street and brooding on the adult evils that victimize children in this world; she then imagines evoking these opposites by inventing the story of an earnest and eventually successful puppeteer. She emphasizes …
Review: The Dragonfly Princess by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on April 20, 2023
Take advantage of the Vortex/Ethos cyber operas when you can; someday they may become as rare as the fairies at the bottom of your garden.
“There are fairies at the bottom of our garden…” the song goes. But they are no fairies such as these I’ll warrant. Fairy mythology and the land of faery have taken many turns in literature and the arts, their baby-stealing propensities amplified in Changelings, produced at Salvage Vanguard Theatre several years back. But in the dark, gothic imagination of Chad Salvata the fairies have become more contradictory, at once monstrous, magical, loving, quarreling, self-serving, …
Review: Selfie, the Musical by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Rick Perkins
Published on April 11, 2022
The powerhouse band of four players and singers, along with the superb cast of four, made SELFIE, this grooving ensemble, rock the house at the Vortex in Austin!
The title alone made me want to see this show. Got it. Selfies, we all have shared them, all too often. Just today at my weekly Friday meal with my golf buddies, I posted my lunch Especial of Chicken Enchiladas. I was certain the world wanted to see how sophisticated and luxurious my measly wasted life is these days, hey looky: #Enchiladas, Livin’ Large, ya Losers! I felt victorious then; now I’m hiding in …
Review #2 of 2: Heartland by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on January 28, 2019
In the tradition of the best modern plays, HEARTLAND also tells several stories at the same time, tracks up-to-the-minute, and shows great heart. This latter quality is sure to make it evergreen.
Heartland, an important new play by Gabriel Jason Dean, is now up at the Vortex. The longish, heavily scripted work takes on geopolitics, especially the alt-tidal forces sweeping back and forth across Afghanistan and the United States. In the tradition of the best modern plays, Heartland also tells several stories at the same time, tracks up-to-the-minute, and shows great heart. This latter quality is sure to make it evergreen, some day to enter the canon. The play is almost all …
Review #1 of 2: Heartland by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 28, 2019
HEARTLAND is so exquisitely written, directed and acted that it's likely to sweep Austin theatre awards. See it, and give in to an evening that will take you out of yourself and into a better place.
Heartland is a small miracle of a play. Playwright Gabriel Jason Dean, aided by director Rudy Ramirez, reconciles the ache of loss by drawing a quiet, warm portrait of a chaste love affair in the impossible circumstances of Afghanistan and evoking those memories for us in the home of an ill and grieving father. They're memories of Getee, a U.S. citizen teacher murdered by the Taliban, and they belong to Nazrullah, a fellow teacher, and to …
Review: Atlantis, a puppet opera by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 11, 2018
Whether loose fantasia or a tale of history before history, ATLANTIS, A PUPPET OPERA offers an evening of soaring, magnificent operatic song and spectacle, enjoyable by families and all.
Things that are unique are hard to describe because there is nothing else for comparison.The best approach to Atlantis: A Puppet Opera, now playing at The Vortex on Manor Road, is to call it a composite uniqueness and merely describe the parts. The Ethos-created show was premiered at The Vortex in 2016, and its return has been eagerly awaited. As before, the show is directed to perfection by Bonnie Cullum. In Atlantis puppets …