Recent Reviews
Review by Brian Paul Scipione (#1 of 3): FALLEN ANGELS by Noël Coward, Different Stages, January 8 - 30, 2016
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 13, 2016
The comedic tension Different Stages' Fallen Angels has the riveting frenetic pace of a Wimbledon tennis match. Cheers to this production.
Martinis, Champagne and the Requisite Amount of Passion “Don’t be young Jane!” Rebecca Robinson as Julia Sterroll shoots out icily at her longtime friend (both in and out of character) Emily Erington as Jane Banbury. In other words, be mature, respectable and a proper English wife: a task neither of them achieve after the first ten minutes of the play. They are the titular Fallen Angels of Noel Coward’s classic (and very controversial at …
Review: Beauty and the Beast by Georgetown Palace Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 18, 2015
Those in this extravaganza are two-dimensional characters for the most part, except for Ismael Soto as the Beast, whom we see both yearning and learning.
I lingered after the Georgetown Palace's Saturday matinee performance of Beauty and the Beast, intending to say hello to Kristin DeGroot, the sweet soprano who plays Belle. Watching the excitement onstage well after the curtain call, I was treated to an unmistakeable demonstration of why this production is running strong and full for its more than six-week run as the Palace's annual Great Big Holiday Extravaganza. DeGroot was surrounded by her fans, a press …
The Devil and the Details: A Review of Austin Playhouse’s The Philadelphia Story
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on December 11, 2015
The spell has been cast. It would be folly to single out any individual performer in this review, since the cast as a whole is so delightful.
The atmosphere is tense but not too tense: family members mill about the living room preparing for the second wedding of the eldest daughter. The nervousness is almost rote, stakes not being quite as high as, say, those for a first wedding. The mother titters about with last minute details.The bride to be makes declarative but none-too bold statements, and the butler is prompt and complacent. Nearly all of them take a moment to bark at the …
Review: Now Now Oh Now by the Rude Mechs
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 07, 2015
Entertaining, thought-provoking and a touch disturbing, this bracing 70 minutes of play is deeply serious. Just like the Rude Mechs themselves.
The Rude Mechs are looking for exactly thirty spectactor-participants to fill the seats at each performance in Now Now Oh Now. Or perhaps I should say at each experience of the work, for they carefully structure it to make those numerological thirty transit with them through the varieties of theatrical experience. Dress warmly, friends, for you'll wait in the yard outside the Off Center until summoned. The Rudes now promise to have a fire, which …
Tonight’s Gonna be a Good Night: A Review of Zach Theatre’s A Christmas Carol, 2015
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on December 03, 2015
In a cornucopia of musical selections director Dave Steakley finds the heartbeat of this production, and let me tell you: It's a very, very rapid heartbeat.
EXPLOSIVE AND CHARMING, two adjectives very little aligned, are actually the most apt description for Zach Theatre’s 2015 interpretation of Charles’ Dicken’s classic A Christmas Carol (ACC). An usher in the lobby warned me on the way in, “Take everything you remember about A Christmas Carol from your childhood and forget it.” His endearing enthusiasm was enough to excite the most suspicious Scrooge in the place. And true enough, the performance took a few liberties with the …
Review: Parade by Ground Floor Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on December 03, 2015
Without elaborated stageplay, the music and storytelling of Parade seem condensed and enriched, adding to the power of a story about prejudice.
Parade by Robert Uhry and Jason Robert Brown is the story of the mob murder of Leo Frank, whose story ignited a powerful movement for justice in the early 20th centuryUnited States and led directly to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League. The musical is up for a very short run now at Ground Floor Theatre, 979 Springdale Road in east Austin. It's an impressive work of art and a compelling up-to-the-minute statement on our own perilous times. …