Reviews for Zach Theatre Performances
Peter and the Starcatcher, by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 12, 2015
Direction and conception evoke the sort of rowdy play-making one might imagine if a dozen pre-teens spent the night at a lock-in after watching Disney's film of Peter Pan.
Professional fan-drama has gotten to be a thing in recent years. Wicked, the dreamy adolescent take on The Wizard of Oz, has been the most successful, and the Marvel Comics franchise leaped past the stage right to the big screen. In 2004 Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson wrote their Peter and the Starcatcher prequel to J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and followed it with three additional post-prequel/pre-Peter Pan children's books. This theatre adaptation by Rick Elice was done in …
Review: The King and I by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 24, 2014
The first and probably unnecessary point to make is that this opulent evening is not the place to go for authenticity. The Zach Theatre has of course gone to great lengths to provide us with an Asian experience, and it's an enchanting one. It's not a historic document, however, and The King and I on the stage at the Topfer Theatre is really a fantasy about the guardedly cordial meeting of East and West. Freely adapted from …
Review: Maid Marian in a Stolen Car by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 08, 2014
The stage is a magic mirror and a magnifying glass. When he appears in the theatre-in-the-round intimacy of the Zach Theatre's Whisenhut stage, Jaston Williams looks much taller than in real life. Wisecracking, telling tales and occasionally appearing in drag, he pleases his audience by providing just enough of that trademark Greater Tuna fun as he gives them an account of his 30+ years on the stage. Behind the cheerful satire and the studied comic …
Review: Maid Marian in a Stolen Car by Zach Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 08, 2014
Maid Marian in a Stolen Car as a title has almost nothing to do with a character out of the tales of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. But as an overarching metaphor for the life in theatre that is Jaston Williams, it's perfect. Here's a man who has worked with the outlaws of theatre for four decades (and counting), a man who stood for right and good but saw injustice along the way. And when …
Review: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike by Zach Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 14, 2014
Zach Theatre Center goes for the gold this spring with Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (VSMS), the 2013 Tony Award winner for Best Play. The Zach is producing the regional premiere of the play with a cast almost completely of Actors Equity Association members, directed by first-time Zach director Abe Reybold. Again Zach gives a work its due with undoubtedly the highest production values of any theatre in Austin. The production is spectacular, …
Review: One Night with Janis Joplin by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on July 20, 2013
One Night with Janis is fun, even if it takes you to a mythic 1970 that couldn't have existed. That backup band has got the hair, for example, but none of the hungry look; they're chunky Texas beer-drinking buddies.
The Zach Theatre has franchised Randy Johnson's concert show, dosing it with lively Joplin imitator Kacee Clanton from LA, top-quality local talent, and a high wall projected full of Colin Lowry's CGI. Clanton and the back-up band deliver some spot-on covers of Pearl's most famous numbers. It's a thumping, thrumming night of thrills, not so cheap, a mostly mindless celebration of the highs delivered to us by that gifted misfit from Port Arthur. The …