Reviews for Austin Playhouse Performances
Review: The Lion in Winter by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 01, 2011
You could just rent the DVD or dig it out of your collection, but Austin Playhouse is offering you a fine cast, an unusual venue, and action that should strike enough spark and fire to keep you fascinated.
Our medieval experience for Austin Playhouse's The Lion in Winter was unexpectedly complete, for last week in that almost unheated temporary tent structure on the windy plains of the Mueller Development we were wishing we had castle-appropriate fur and wool like those of the period costumes put together for the actors by Diana Huckaby. I suspect that they might have been wearing high tech underwear for the long evening during which we sat motionless watching …
Review: Laughter on the 23rd Floor by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 18, 2011
The comedy in this piece is actor-driven, dependent on the players' sharpness in establishing the eccentrics. The range is wide.
Neil Simon's set-up for Laughter on the 23rd Floor is simple and classic, if you can abstract from the biographic aspects of it. A newcomer enthusing about his new job discovers that his work colleagues are eccentrics, each more bizarre and devastatingly verbal than the previous one. Their employer, initially unseen, has enormous stature with the public, but they all know that he is a generous, distracted borderline psycho. Set 'em ricocheting off one another, …
Review: The Importance of Being Earnest by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 07, 2011
The faces are familiar, regulars all, and the only real surprise is Rick Roemer's enchantingly starchy and autocratic dignity as Lady Bracknell.
This "Trivial Comedy for Serious People" opened in 1895 and it was the last shining moment for Wilde's career as writer and dramatist. Soon afterwards he found himself in court, accused of immoral behavior and then sentenced to gaol. Because of that scandal the original production closed after only 86 performances. Since then it has become one of the most dependable and regularly revived comic satires on the boards. Wilde's earnest young men show themselves …
Review: The Trip to Bountiful by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 11, 2010
In performance all that light and liberty disappears, for director Toner situates these actors in the dark confines of a black box, provided with minimal props and simple furnishings. The concept is so stark and featureless that the Playhouse lists no credit for stage design.
This is a memory play, an exercise in yearning -- not only for the principal character Carrie Watts, but also for playwright Horton Foote and for the audience. Where are they, those vanished earlier times, and what were they really like? Depending entirely on her son and her daughter-in-law in their apartment somewhere in the Houston of 1953, Carrie Watts longs to return to her home, a house somewhere in rural Texas at a crossroads …
Review: The 39 Steps by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 29, 2010
The theatrical spoof has actions and effects going comically wrong, reminding us that we are spectators, watching real people. Players play actors playing characters, and they'll drop out of character to mug, heave a sigh or remonstrate.
Austin Playhouse scheduled Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps for a run of almost two months, but I didn't manage to use my season tickets until the penultimate weekend of the run. Not that I expected to be disappointed; The 39 Steps won an Olivier award for best comedy in 2007 and the Broadway version, with the added tag tying it to Hitchcock, ran for two years before moving off-Broadway. And not too far off Broadway …
Review: Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 02, 2010
If you concentrate on the words, you may get a pale and distant impression of the genius who was Jacques Brel.
This is a pleasant and inconsequential little evening of cabaret. Go and listen to the Austin Playhouse staging of Blau and Shuman's 1968 compendium Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. If you concentrate on the words, you may get a pale and distant impression of the genius who was Jacques Brel. These are the problems of translation. The music stands outside language, but Brel's stories and lyrics are deeply embedded in …