Reviews for Theatre en Bloc Performances
Review: Cock by Theatre en Bloc
by David Glen Robinson
Published on October 06, 2014
Theatre en Bloc presents Cock by Mike Bartlett at the Off Center in east Austin, October 3 through 26, 2014. As advertised, the award-winning play is about a young man who leaves his boyfriend, meets a woman, and then returns to question his sexual identity. Forget actually changing it. Merely questioning it is enough to pitch one into the abyss of unknowing, as this brilliant play informs us in roaring, penetrating detail. Its refreshing humor keeps the …
Review: Cock by Theatre en Bloc
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 06, 2014
Director Derek Kolluri and the four equally gifted members of this cast prove to us how perilously close are the arcs between sentimental comedy and tragedy. Cock is a powerful piece, one that will wring you out over the hundred minutes of fierce emotional fighting that takes place inside the chalk circle at the Off Center. Playwright Mike Bartlett's provocative title Cock is a cheap come-on, not worthy of the depth of feeling and the intensity of the acting. …
Review: Bethany by Theatre en Bloc
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 02, 2014
Theatre en Bloc has opened Bethany by Laura Marks. The play offers themes of diverse social problems and trends, including homelessness, unemployment, housing decline, the fraudulent inspirational management industry, urban decay, and government bungling. All these are thrown together in an intriguing, plot-heavy contemporary play that could be happening in Round Rock, Detroit, or down the block as we speak. Jenny Lavery directs. Theatre en Bloc is to be applauded for its excellent choice of a serious …
Review: Fat Pig by Theatre en Bloc
by David Glen Robinson
Published on October 05, 2013
LaBute is cruel to his characters and indirectly to his audiences. He emphasize the mean and selfish aspects of the game of life and love. The tension arises from waiting to see if the beauty of Helen's soul and figure can overcome the inherent deficiencies of social convention and the male sex.
Theatre en Bloc produced this Neil Labute play, directed by Derek Kolluri, at the Off Center in east Austin. The two-word title, Fat Pig ,is one of the most succinct and apt descriptions of the premise and theme of a play ever. The play is about bodies and human beings’ reactions to difference. In exposition, Charles P. Stites in the secondary role of Carter spoke the insightful passages, about how we don’t trust differences of …
Review: Just Outside Redemption by Theatre en Bloc
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 27, 2012
In the excitement of the effective retelling of what was really a legislative history and in the midst of the adulation of those who brought it about more than a decade ago, that sense of community and common purpose was reaffirmed.
In his current All Over Creation essay in the Austin Chronicle Robert Faires muses over the moral dilemma you face when your theatre friends come to you after a performance you didn't particularly care for and expectantly await your reaction. Faires has been on both sides of that divide, for in addition to his roles as a reviewer, critic and arts writer he's an actor and a director, opening his staging of the comedy Moonlight and Magnolias for Penfold Theatre next week. The …
Review: American Bear, a play about home by Theatre en Bloc
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 30, 2011
Part of the fascination and, frankly, the deeply unsettling feeling prompted by this play is the experience of seeing highly intelligent actors submerge themselves into characters who are uncomprehending. Jenny Lavery and Derek Kolluri are whip smart, I know, from seeing their work.
Larry Mitchell's American Bear has an undeclared kinship with the 'kitchen sink' school of drama of 1950s Britain, grim depictions of working class life pioneered by John Osborne's Look Back in Anger (curiously enough, also playing in Austin this week and next). Sam Shepard has explored similar terrain and Tracy Letts followed him there with sardonic tales you might call the Grand Guignols of Trailer Park Trash. American Bear offers a world that is more credible than those. Mitchell's characters are from …