Reviews for Austin Playhouse Performances
Review: The Turn of the Screw by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 03, 2009
Jenny Gravenstein uses her face, especially those luminiscent eyes, her posture, and carefully controlled voice and hands to draw us into the pool of flickering light that is the governess's spirit.
Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw takes you into a dark place. A brief chapter sets the scene. On Christmas Eve in an old house in the countryside a group of bourgeois friends has just listened to a ghost story. Their host, Douglas, offers them another, but they have to wait for a manuscript to be dispatched from his residence in London. That text -- "in old, faded ink, and in the most beautiful hand" -- …
Review: Frost/Nixon by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 05, 2009
These two actors give the illusion of a chemistry and a growing affinity between Frost and Nixon. The journalist out for a career-saving scoop develops an understanding and an intuition about the isolated ex-president.
Almost thirty years had gone by when British dramatist Peter Morgan wrote this piece. The Gielgud Theatre picked it up from an "off-West-End" theatre in 2006. A Broadway production ran for 137 performances in 2007. Frank Langella won both a Tony Award for best actor, as well as the corresponding Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.Thirty years is about the right lapse of time before one exorcises demons and rehabilitates felons. Pain is remembered …
Review: The Fantasticks by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 29, 2009
The pretend nostalgia of this show plays well with old duffers like me, and the charm still inherent to the script plays well with spectators such as my 24-year-old daughter.
The Fantasticks at Austin Playhouse is charming. This reliable, charming low-budget winsome musical has been charming 'em since its low-budget opening off-Broadway in 1960.This is the show that smashed the records for long runs -- with a 42-year run by the original production and 17,162 performances. Then a New York City revival that ran 655 performances in 2006-2008 at the Snapple Theatre Center's Jerry Orbach Theatre on 50th Street, paused, then resumed and is still going. You can check out …
Review: Age of Arousal by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 13, 2009
'Age of Arousal' is a strange, febrile comedy. It's like Dickens on drugs, if Dickens were to write about a closed circle of odd women.
Age of Arousal is a strange, febrile comedy. It's like Dickens on drugs, if Dickens were to write about a closed circle of odd women.These women are "odd" both in the numerical meaning of "not in a pair" and in the metaphorical meaning of "singular" or "remarkable." They are not "unique," because playwright Linda Griffiths intends them to represent for us the plight of women in late 19th century England, where by demographic quirk women outnumbered …
Review: A Flea in Her Ear by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 02, 2009
J. Ben Wolfe does a wonderful slow burn, complete with barely visible facial tic. His single-minded comic stalking of Lucienne and a non-existent lover throw delicious danger and thrill into otherwise frivolous caperings.
In the madcap 19th century world of French playwright Georges Feydeau, two qualities in farce are certain to produce merriment: man's unfulfilled desire and woman's unsatisfied curiosity.No one ever says that, of course. This is not Oscar Wilde, his contemporary from across the channel.The ample, delighted laughter at Austin Playhouse's production of A Flea in Her Ear is provoked by antics, deceptions and astonishing coincidences that bring respectable bourgeois folk sneaking into the shady world of the …
Review: Heroes by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 22, 2009
The fact that Sibleyras can now mock those valiant geezers and the first half of France's twentieth century is a sign that, at last, his countrymen are beginning once again to feel at ease in their skins.
A quiet word in your ear: do not expect too much of this gentle little three-character play. Don't over analyze it, and don't expect to the whip-smart verbal play typical of Tom Stoppard's own work. Author Gérard SIbleyras isn't loading symbolism onto his 2005 creation.Three ageing French military officers in an old soldiers' home, in 1959. They meet daily, for hours, on a secluded terrace with a view of fields and, in the distance, a …