Reviews for Present Company Theatre Performances
Review: Your Mother's Copy of the Kama Sutra by Present Company Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 25, 2018
Kirk Lynn's bold new play offers a message transcending generations and putting us in touch with our authentic selves. It deserves heightened attention and a better venue. Leads Judd Farris and Amber Quick are dueling torches of fury.
Present Company has just mounted the regional premiere of the latest play by the Rude Mechs’ Kirk Lynn, Your Mother’s Copy of the Kama Sutra. Alexandra Bassiakou Shaw directs. The show is up currently at The Museum of Human Achievement (MoHA) on the east side. The play is an adults-only exploration of generational change in sex and sexuality in the millennial world, but one restricted to the urban upper middle class. Anyone expecting a universalizing …
Review: Twelfth Night by Present Company Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 22, 2016
The cast of this lively and family-friendly TWELFTH NIGHT are among the best devotees of Shakespeare in the city, the ones we are wont to take delight in.
Fun, family-friendly, free and right downtown where all the cool kids shop -- can this be Shakespeare? The clever theatre folk of Present Company have been here before, and this cheerful picnic-style produiction of the comedy Twelfth Night on the easily accessed rooftop terrace of the Whole Foods flagship store at 5th & Lamar in Austin is just as accomplished as their 2014 Much Ado About Nothin and their 2015 Love's Labor's Lost in the same location Austin …
Review: Hamlet (7-person version based on First Folio) by Present Company Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 27, 2016
You awaken from the spell at the end of the night to realize that you've been captivated in Shakespeare's bubble of eternity, and you wish that it wasn't at an end.
It's undeniable: Hamlet is dark. When we first see him, the protagonist acknowledges to his mother his "nighted color" and replies that "'tis not only my inky cloak, good mother/Nor customary suits of solemn black." But mourning garb is only a minor symbolic indication of the vast darkness that lies across this story. It starts on darkened battlements with a ghost and soon returns there; and the darkness within men's souls is blacker and grimmer …
Review: Love's Labor's Lost by Present Company Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 04, 2015
Love’s Labor’s Lost has long lingered in unlovéd obscurity, and not just for its alliterations. Present Company has organized a fine party for you up there on the rooftop and all you have to do is kick back, admire and enjoy.
What better time than spring — even a Texas spring — for a play about the foolishness of courting? And who better to present it than Present Company, the players who’ve left Rain Lily Farm again this year for the rooftop terrace at Whole Foods Market in downtown Austin? Love’s Labor’s Lost has long lingered in unlovéd obscurity, and not just for its alliterations. Shakespeare probably wrote this court entertainment in the …
Picasso at the Lapin Agile, by Present Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 04, 2015
Stephanie Carll's direction crafts clever interplay between the characters, the accompaniment and the audience. The tempo is brisk, and surprises pop forth like nimble bunnies out of a derby hat.
Usually during performance the theatre artists of Present Company have breeze ruffling their hair, as they stand out on their epic set constructions at Rain Lily Farm in east Austin or scamper around the roof terrace at Whole Foods Market. Not so in Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Their charming production of Steve Martin's clever, goofy play set in 1904 Paris offers a different experience. Director Stephanie Carll and Production Coordinator Samuel Grimes bring you …
Review: The Tempest by Present Company Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 19, 2014
Below and all about the looming presence of the monumental set by the wonderfully imaginative Ia Ensterä there's a tribal intensity in Present Company's rendering of The Tempest. Structures are cleverly clad with discarded shipping pallets and decorated with bric-a-brac. The spectacle is augmented by the washes and color shifts of Christina Barboza's lighting design, no mean accomplishments in an outdoor setting that's really a farmyard. Before the action commences, the audience is treated to …