Review: The Making of a Great Moment by Hyde Park Theatre
by Michael Meigs
I caught Hyde Park Theatre's The Making of a Great Moment on the first weekend of performances. Looking around, I saw lots of Austin theatre peeps in the audience. No wonder, considering that Ken and Katherine have been sounding the drums on the return of Lee Eddy and Jeff Mills to the local stage; both actors are much admired by theatre colleagues. If you've never heard of them (or only gotten glimpses), this zany duo performance directed by Mark Pickell will show you why.
All you need for theatre is a cast, a space, and an audience. In this bare space Great Moment offers, in addition, a couple of trim trekky bikes and appropriate helmets. And some lighting effects. Those are more than enough.
These actors gleefully portray actors. In this case, Mona and Terry, a couple of Canadian thespians who've signed on for a lengthy biking trip from Toronto and down through New England for one-night performances of a quirky piece portraying great unknown moments in human history (e.g., the first time a human realized that animal fur could be used for covering). They mime and proclaim those unrecorded moments in jumpy comic style reminiscent of, say, The 39 Steps or The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged). Director Mark Pickell clearly had a good time satirizing that style of play.
The HPT program for The Making of a Great Moment has a similarly impish touch, for it includes full bios for the mythical actors and their mythical director, crediting Lee Eddy and Jeff Mills as the understudies (check those out through the link below).
The Great Moments are the least of the story. Far more important is the Making of. In the same exuberant, often declamatory style, Eddy and Mills commiserate and occasionally countermiserate. About camping out; about their precarious transport; about the hard conditions of this odd itinerate endeavor. They bitch about Toronto theatre and theatre in general, involuntarily revealing their own histories. Terry, involved in this 407th production, is almost a burned-out case; Mona remains enchanted by the magic of acting and makebelieve.
Their emotional honesty is invigorating. It's not sexual in the least, which is a consolation, for it frees them to sympathize or to battle it out without gender power plays. It's as if Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's lovely, unpredictable comedy has burned away the human dross to present us with two pure spirits, a Puck and an Ariel who incarnate the occasionally frustrate magic of theatre art.
A flat tire, an oversight, and an impulsive thrust of a blade leave them suddenly stranded in deep, dark, isolated woods. No way out.
What, no exit? Nonsense! Theatre's essence is ingenuity and improvisation. The playwright teases us but satisfies us, giving the story arc a deft, apt twist. WIth duct tape!
EXTRA
Click to view the Hyde Park Theatre program for The Making of a Great Moment
The Making of a Great Moment
by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
Hyde Park Theatre
October 01 - October 24, 2026
(revised) October 1 - October 24, 2026
Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd at Guadalupe, Austin
