Reviews for Salvage Vanguard Theater Performances
Review: From the Pig Pile: the Requisite Gesture(s) of Narrow Approach by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by David Glen Robinson
Published on April 26, 2014
From the Pig Pile: the Requisite Gesture(s) of Narrow Approach is an ambitious and lavish work supported by the National Performance Network (NPN). It is also difficult to categorize in any theatre textbook way, but that shouldn’t keep anyone away from its table of delights. The company tells us that they developed the show over three years with many rehearsals and creative help from nonresident artists. Written by Sibyl Kempson in collaboration with the Austin 'pig pile,' …
Review: Civilization (All You Can Eat) by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by Catherine Dribb
Published on February 28, 2012
The audience meets the first character, a hog, played by the talented Jude Hickey. And the rest is, well, an unveiling not only of hogs but also of porn stars, bigots, directors, hippies, self-help-book authors and (of course) actors.
It’s strange. The concept is great, but the play is strange. Just a warning. The show opens with actors engaged in movement who quickly scatter when the initial dialogue begins, and the audience meets the first character, a hog, played by the talented Jude Hickey. And the rest is, well, an unveiling not only of hogs but also of porn stars, bigots, directors, hippies, self-help-book authors and (of course) actors. It’s a …
Review: Guest by Courtesy by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 08, 2011
The point of these shenanigans is that these modern ladies are flinging that big fat etiquette book right out the window. And they're having a fine time doing it.
On their opening night Hannah Kenah and Jenny Larson attracted an audience with lots of youngish faces more often lit by footlights, spots and stage lighting than by house lights. Those audience members were happily anticipating an entertainment that had been in gestation for two years. The two well known and well liked Austin actresses had presented workshop versions of Guest by Courtesy in May and November 2009 as part of the SVT's Works Progress Austin series. …
Review: In This House Everything Is You by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 22, 2010
One imagines company members curled up on sofas under the high ceilings of the front room with its baby grand piano, drinking coffee at the kitchen table, or roaming around the back yard as they create.
No, despite the enigmatic lines of the teaser, this is not a ghost story. It is collaborative imagination of memories tied to the faded upright eloquence of that two-story bed and breakfast residence in lower East Austin now known as the Eponymous Garden."Eponymous" because the Garden takes its name from the street, Garden Street, and perhaps -- it would seem appropriate -- from that neighborhood in Austin. It's just east of I-35 and a couple …
Review: Unbeaten by Shannon McCormick and Graham Reynolds
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 31, 2008
McCormick charms the crowd, interacts with them, responds to them. In one chilling moment, he stops front and center in a spotlight to deliver “the unheard voice between the coach’s ears” with the message that we all lose eventually.
American football is already highly stylized theatre.The fact that the sport has not spread beyond our country, unlike those other great American pastimes baseball and basketball, suggests that the Saturday and Sunday gridiron kabuki says something unique about the American mentality. A writer in The Economist once called it “the quintessential sport of the United States – a combination of committee work and violence.” Writer/actor/self-director Shannon McCormick has a keen eye for the characters and the conventions …