Reviews for Different Stages Performances
Review: Eurydice by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 14, 2010
It's disconcerting to see Ruhl the brief spark of human existence into drollery. A bit like accepting a slice of birthday cake and finding it full of shards of glass.
Sarah Ruhl's version of the Eurydice myth begins as a fable. Nicole Swahn, the childishly enthusiastic and simple-minded Eurydice, frolics at the beach with Bastion Carboni as her beau, the music geek Orpheus. They're on their way to an unreflecting storybook wedding. Little matter that she has no comprehension of the music in his head and apparently no head for her own history. In part, because she's not getting the mail. We learn that Eurydice's father, …
Review: The Skin of our Teeth by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 18, 2009
This is wild stuff -- a history of humankind as embodied by the Antrobus family, with a mad mix-up of times, epic figures, surreal settings and primal myths.
Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth is 67 years old but it plays as if it had been written and workshopped last week by one of those Austin indie arts groups of which we are so proud. It's wild stuff --a history of humankind as embodied by the Antrobus family, with a mad mix-up of times, epic figures, surreal settings and primal myths. Refract that story through the lens of a dramatic structure that the author …
Review: An Inspector Calls by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on July 11, 2009
Peters' Inspector Goole is properly spectral in aspect, conduct and reproach. He unleashes a moral questioning in this milieu, one that remains alive more with some -- the young and previously thoughtless Sheila, for one -- than with others.
Under the artistic direction of Norman Blumensaadt, Different Stages and its predecessor the Small Potatoes Theatre Company have furnished Austin Theatre with a considerable library of stage work. The back page of the program for An Inspector Calls lists 109 productions the company has brought to the boards since 1981.Different Stages has given the city a good dose of the classics and a wide array of works from the British and European stages. The company has often reached back …
Review: A Number by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 27, 2009
Churchill's texts are plosive monologues. Ideas and questions rush out out father and son, as each only half-listens to the other.
The concept of human cloning is profoundly unsettling.We like the fact each of us is unique. Individuality situates us in the universe and in our own skins. Each of us might fantasize a different reality or our self as a different individual, but we intuit that even those avatars, if realized, would be unique.The existence of fraternal twins or triplets is nature's benevolent random trick that reinforces our faith in our own individuality. Nature has …
Review: Miss Witherspoon by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 12, 2009
Underwood herself is worth well more than the price of admission, and at times the piece becomes a one-woman show. Hovering in that unexpected afterlife, she longs for release, rest and forgetfulness.
Jennifer Underwood is larger than life. Like famous stage personalities, she captures our attention utterly with her remarkable appearance, conviction and an acting talent that amounts almost to shape-changing. In Miss Witherspoon, directed by Karen M. Jambon for Different Stages and now playing at the City Theatre, Underwood is a deeply disappointed soul in the afterlife, determined not to give in to the requirement that she be reincarnated. Sometimes, with her stubborn will, she prevails; but when …
Review: Getting Married by George Bernard Shaw, Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 19, 2008
Shaw delights in putting all sorts of contrarian observations into the mouths of his characters. For example, Reg’s soon-to-be-ex-wife Leo scandalizes the men when she declares that she would quite like to have several husbands.
George Bernard Shaw wrote Getting Marriedexactly a century ago. To my delight, I discovered that the New York Times makes available a copy of Catherine Welch’s 3800-word review of May 24, 1908, a full page of the paper, including sketches of GBS and two actors. I haven’t read it yet, because with some difficulty I impose on myself the discipline of writing my own review before consulting others. But I couldn’t avoid absorbing Mrs. Welch’s subtitles:GEORGE BERNARD SHAW …