Reviews for Street Corner Arts Performances
Review: Constellations, Street Corner Arts
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 12, 2016
Playwright Payne and director Liz Fisher open up Marianne and Roland to one another, and as a result they expose our hearts as well.
I wanted to see it twice. I needed to see it twice. And it's been so much on my mind that last night in my sleep I worked for a long time on the wording for a review, only to have those decisive phrases dissolve when I roused fitfully in the darkness of the small hours. Theatre space is plastic, transformable, and theatre time is elastic. Place your audience before a blank black stage with …
Review: Orphans by Street Corner Arts
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 27, 2016
ORPHANS presents a Peter Pan/Neverland scenario of amoral feral children for whom Michael Stuart turns up as sage con man and, in effect, a guiding guardian angel.
Aaron Johnson, co-producer and cast member, told Alex Garza during a CTX Live Theatre interview that he's been carrying around Lyle Kessler's 1983 drama Orphans since his freshman year in college. Street Corner Arts' new Sidewalk Series of semi-sponsored work has given him the opportunity to put it on stage. Or, rather, into one side of the Back Pack improv troupe's well hidden rehearsal space in east Austin. To find it, you need to …
Review: Bull by Street Corner Arts
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 18, 2016
'Bull' may leave a sour taste in your mouth, particularly after that last unendurably long fade in the final scene, but it's exactly the taste that playwright Mike Bartlett wants you to have.
Mike Bartlett's single-syllable title for this piece doesn't give much away. The playwright's a Brit, so perhaps Bull isn't intended to suggest the American message of unbelievable mendacity. The verb "to bully" is more to the point, for one of this work-team trio has every reason to complain of bullying, and does so. For me the most vivid association is with the animal. Not for the power or muscle or determination of the bull; instead, because …
Review: The Great God Pan by Street Corner Arts
by Thomas Hallen
Published on April 16, 2015
There's great connection that happens in spite of the real and fabricated social barriers of the story. But there's something about the rhythm of the piece that kept me from settling in.
Contemporary realism is tough in several ways. There's no immediate recognition of author or title by the typical audience member, issues are often of the moment and touchy, and centuries of dramatic refinement leaves good dialogue a slippery fish to grab. So kudos to any theatre willing to take the risk and perform pieces which are not tried-and-true. This alone should get you in the door. Street Corner Arts has tackled a very contemporary piece, …
Review: The Great God Pan by Amy Herzog, Street Corner Arts
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 11, 2015
The Great God Pan absorbs you in the silent everyday dilemmas of seeking a healthy, fulfilled life. Characters' failures could be seen as second-best solutions; some of their successes look like disasters.
The Hyde Park Theatre's a fine and private place, an intimate space to show the quirks and dreams of our contemporary imaginings. Amy Herzog's The Great God Pan, now in production there until April 18, takes that intimacy even further, into the recesses of the psychology and emotional lives of friends and a family that could have been our own. The set-up is stark and simple. Jamie is a 30-something writer who's just gotten …
Review: Waiting for Lefty by Street Corner Arts
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 07, 2014
This isn't history. It's emotional time travel, back to the desperate depths of the mid-1930s when the near collapse of our economic system was grinding up honest working men and their families like hamburger. Street Corner Arts' blistering, riveting production at the Hyde Park Theatre puts the audience directly into a shabby union hall where drivers debate whether to go out on strike for wage hikes. In a series of scenes on that same platform, …