Reviews for Zach Theatre Performances
Review: August: Osage County by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 12, 2011
Tennessee Williams was a dour idealist. Letts, in contrast, is a nihilist whose message is that our American culture is rotting at its heart. He's a man of black humors entertaining us in a wasteland.
Director Dave Steakley proves that with a first-rate cast and a gifted scenic designer he can turn Tracey Letts' savage misanthropy into a mesmerizing long evening in the theatre. That's no modest achievement. The last -- and first -- Letts work I saw was Capital T Theatre's Killer Joe, which I found violent and obscene. Not in the sexual sense, but because Letts took such evident pleasure in degrading his working-class characters. Perhaps Letts is …
Review: Fiction by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 24, 2011
The plot turns are artful but I found myself wondering why I should care at all. The Watermans are irretrievably shallow.
The University of Texas at Austin with its ambitious program for drama and playwriting is fortunate to have hired the prolific Steven Dietz away from Seattle. On the evidence of the four Dietz plays staged here over the last couple of years, he possesses a sure sense of craft as well as an understanding of the hazy dreams of middle class America. The Zach Theatre chose to feature Dietz himself in its promotional material for …
Review: Rent by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 24, 2010
The show roars -- literally. The band dimly visible behind the chain link fence at center stage has got its amps turned all the way up under the direction of Allen Robertson. Microphones on the singers are not sufficient to protect them or us.
Rent is the sort of production the Zach theatre uses to pay the rent: the staging of a familiar rock and roll work with appeal for the young, for the young professionals, for the creatives and for the club goers. Seen as daring at its 1996 debut, Rent has become sufficiently mainstream that it can be staged in community theatres, summer theatres, and, this past February, even by the kidsActing studio here in Austin. Director …
Review: Metamorphoses by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 06, 2010
Call this the Cirque de Soleil approach to Greek myth. . . .(In case you didn't catch it, the Apple computer represented Pandora's box, the one that unleashed evils on the world.)
Call this the Cirque de Soleil approach to Greek myth. From its 1996 origin at Northwestern University Mary Zimmerman's piece used a pool of water as its central metaphor -- suggesting the chaos at creation and both the life-giving and life-threatening qualities of water and the sea. At Northwestern the piece was staged next to and in an Olympic standard pool. The water setting was retained at the Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago and at the …
Review: The Drowsy Chaperone by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on July 01, 2010
This cast hits every mark and lifts you into its singing, dancing world. There's a hysterical moment in Act II when we plunge momentarily into a different musical with the same stars.
When I got home, still bubbling from Zach's The Drowsy Chaperone, I was ready to write, "Run, don't walk, to the Zach box office to get your first set of tickets for this sparkling evening of music, comedy and light-hearted fooling, a clever reincarnation of Broadway at its wonderful beginnings." That's hyperbole, of course. Because you don't need to run anywhere. You just tap zachtheatre.org into your browser, click a couple of times and give …
Review: Becky's New Car by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 04, 2010
Preview night was not an adventure for Becky -- at least, not beyond the intermission -- and we walked away with the uneasy feeling that our heroine Becky Foster was stuck a long way from happiness with no towing service to call.
Zach's post card calls it "A Revved-up Comic Adventure!" The website is even more breathless, promising "[a] life-affirming comedy about an eccentric millionaire who offers Becky the keys to a brand new life [in][. . . . ] a fantastically funny exploration about class, wealth and selling out during Becky's wild ride through a clever twist of events. Huge laughs, hairpin plot turns and a story with the pedal to the metal. Buckle up!" So …