Reviews for Filigree Theatre Performances

Review: PHOTOGRAPH 51 by Anna Ziegler, by Filigree Theatre, Austin

Review: PHOTOGRAPH 51 by Anna Ziegler, by Filigree Theatre, Austin

by David Glen Robinson
Published on February 05, 2024

Superlative writing makes DNA discovery accessible; Anna Ziegler's script and Elizabeth V. Newman's direction provide the competition, misgivings, and misogyny behind that Nobel Prize.

Anna Ziegler’s play Photograph 51 could exhaust a reviewer’s list of cliché superlatives. And such hacking would show disrespect to an impressive work of art premiering in Austin. Photograph 51 relates the scientific story of the discovery of the role of DNA in the genetics of life. Science-based plays have exceptional challenges explaining scientific principles and activities to non-scientific audiences. The writer must exercise great care in order not to lose the average theatregoer. Anna …

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Review: Antigone (David Rush) by Filigree Theatre

Review: Antigone (David Rush) by Filigree Theatre

by Michael Meigs
Published on October 26, 2023

In Filigree Theatre's accomplished staging, the adversity and mutual destruction of Antigone and dictator Creon are entirely human. The gods are silent. As they are in our own day.

The choices are stark and the interests are opposed. As they were then, are now, and ever will be.   Playwright/adapter David Rush thoroughly scrubs Sophocles's Antigone, like a museum curator carefully restoring a find from an archeological dig, rendering it from an odd antiquity into a darkly glowing relevant contemporary challenge.   Director Elizabeth V. Newman, her cast, and the design team embraced the ritual nature of Greek drama with an almost liturgical staging. …

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Review #2 of 2: FIRE IN DREAMLAND by Filigree Theatre

Review #2 of 2: FIRE IN DREAMLAND by Filigree Theatre

by Justin M. West
Published on February 08, 2023

A trio of subtly brilliant performances offers satisfying contrast to FIRE IN DREAMLAND's surreal storytelling and aethereal set design. This production sits with you. For days afterward.

  The venue looked vaguely like an aircraft carrier on the inside, with a marked but not unpleasant chill in the air. Hot cocoa and tea on offer and heaters strategically placed about the space kept us comfortable. A subtle suggestion via email before the show to bundle up didn’t hurt, either. Decidedly aircraft-free, Factory on Fifth is home to Filigree Theatre’s Fire in Dreamland, which began its two-week run last Thursday. The acquired taste …

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Review #1 of 2: FIRE IN DREAMLAND by Filigree Theatre

Review #1 of 2: FIRE IN DREAMLAND by Filigree Theatre

by David Glen Robinson
Published on February 05, 2023

These characters live in their heads, in dreamland, but to their peril. Director Elizabeth V. Newman and the cast achieve storytelling rich in nuance of expression, posture, and body language.

  Filigree Theatre’s production of Fire in Dreamland by Rinne Groff is in production now at the alternative space of Factory on Fifth, in keeping with Filigree Theatre’s aesthetic of producing high-quality plays almost by hand work. Factory on Fifth, one in a row of Quonset huts from the end of World War II purposed and repurposed for generations since, seems a perfect fit for Filigree Theatre.   There was a certain kind of contemporary …

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Review: 100 Planes by Filigree Theatre

Review: 100 Planes by Filigree Theatre

by Michael Meigs
Published on April 06, 2019

With 100 PLANES Elizabeth Newman and Stephanie Moore have another found a challenging script, set in the unfamiliar world of female Air Force pilots in the mid-1990's.

The Mastrogeorge is a microtheatre -- maybe a nanotheatre -- just off east Cesar Chavez on Pedernales, tucked behind Blue Owl brewing. This performance space has folding chairs for an audience of about 15 persons. Though it's stark and small, resembling a draped concrete box, surprising things happen here. The facility is associated with the Carol Hickey Acting Studio, so the focus is on the acting, which can be of high quality.   Lila Rose …

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Review: When We Were Young and Unafraid by Filigree Theatre

Review: When We Were Young and Unafraid by Filigree Theatre

by Michael Meigs
Published on February 15, 2019

Polemical but well crafted, Sarah Treem's script with its strongly contrasted characters, episodic construction and tidy plot is evidence of the playwright's success as a writer for television. Her message is clear.

Go back forty-six years with playwright Sarah Treem and the artists of Filigree Theatre, and you'll find yourself in an eerily different place and time. The unpretentious kitchen Chris Conard has crafted in the compact space of the Mastrogeorge Theatre looks pretty much like what you'd expect to find at a bed and breakfast out on an island close to the border with Canada, but you're seeing through a glass darkly. While St. Paul urged …

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