Reviews for The Stage Performances
Review: Fool for Love by Sam Shepard, The Stage, Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on July 15, 2026
The Stage Austin delivers a haunting depiction of Sam Shepard's violent desolation; Texans will recognize, New Yorkers probably not so much.
The intensity of Sam Shepard plays leaves audiences in search of refreshing towels and stiff drinks. The powerful cast in The Stage Austin’s production of Fool for Love offers watchers in the audience no respite from the emotional jangling imposed on us. Shepard’s plays rely on a significant recurrent theme, or leitmotif, of modern Western life. He frequently juxtaposes the struggles between those trying to escape the honky-tonk life and those sinking back into it. …
Review #2 of 2: The Game's Afoot by The Stage, Austin
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on April 11, 2026
With a cast stacked with talent, The Game's Afoot is a night of very serious silliness. Worth a second viewing (but its final weekend is sold out!).
“Come, Watson, come!' he cried. 'The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!' Ten minutes later we were both in a cab and rattling through the silent streets on our way to Charing Cross Station.” ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Return of Sherlock Holmes “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our English dead. (….) I see you stand like greyhounds in the …
Review #1 of 2: The Game's Afoot by The Stage, Austin
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 26, 2026
Despite the gleeful handfuls of red herrings, in The Game's Afoot you may guess who's responsible for the murder. But it's more likely you'll simply be enjoying the antics and the farce.
Playwright Ken Ludwig is prolific, clever, and widely admired, both in the bigger drama houses across the nation and in community theatres. The man currently has thirty-four scripts to his credit, an impressive number; even more impressive is his near-ubiquity in the U.S. theatre landscape. Perhaps you know that he crafted the popular adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express, a version of which recently played at Austin's Zach Theatre; you probably aren't aware that …
Review: The Real Inspector Hound by The Stage, Austin
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on July 28, 2023
Hamlet declared, “The play’s the thing,” but in The Stage’s production of THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND, we are duly reminded that in fact the actors are the thing that makes the play.
Who is the real Inspector Hound? For that matter who is Tom Stoppard? Or more to the point, does Tom Stoppard hate critics? Furthermore, what does it mean to be a critic criticizing a play that criticizes critics? And what, really, is a red herring? If Stoppard’s writing style is an absurd reflection of the absurd qualities of life, doesn’t that naturally make him a naturalistic writer? Finally, if a red herring is a misleading …