Recent Reviews
Review: Blithe Spirit by Fredericksburg Theater Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 21, 2014
The very first sight of the set for the Fredericksburg Theater Company production of Noël Coward's Blithe Spirit illustrates a familiar and gratifying aspect of many a community theatre, including the Wimberley Players, the Gaslight Baker Theatre in Lockhart and the Sam Bass Theatre in Round Rock. Perhaps this care comes from an awareness of being away from the usual metropolitan art centers; perhaps it's a determination to show the world that 'community' doesn't mean …
Review: The Tempest by Present Company Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 19, 2014
Below and all about the looming presence of the monumental set by the wonderfully imaginative Ia Ensterä there's a tribal intensity in Present Company's rendering of The Tempest. Structures are cleverly clad with discarded shipping pallets and decorated with bric-a-brac. The spectacle is augmented by the washes and color shifts of Christina Barboza's lighting design, no mean accomplishments in an outdoor setting that's really a farmyard. Before the action commences, the audience is treated to …
Review: A Bright New Boise by Hyde Park Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 18, 2014
You might suppose that Samuel Hunter's 2010 play A Bright New Boise is a satire about empty-eyed religion in the upper Midwest and the Oklahoma plains where Hobby Lobby is headquartered. Indeed, you could move the pieces around to build a case for that -- all the more so, considering that in June of this year the Supreme Court accepted the contention of Hobby Lobby and similar businesses that the owner-managers' religious convictions justified limiting …
Review: Time Stands Still by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 15, 2014
I don't watch television. I don't have cable TV service in the house, and I especially avoid television news. Even when the editors strive for balance in face of controversy, TV reporting makes you stupid. Most of it is essentially entertainment, so the programmers can't resist lurid exploitation of violence and catastrophe. That's what the public wants and has wanted since the days of Aristotle: stories that arouse pity and fear. So you'll understand my …
Review: The Norwegians by Southwestern University
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 10, 2014
Swanson's one-act script is a cleverly ironic thought experiment: Given that Norwegians are some of the nicest people in the world, with their phlegmatic courtesy and lilting accent in English, what would Norwegian contract killers be like?
Southwestern University's resident playwright and part-time assistant prof C. Denby Swanson was graced over this past couple of weeks with a university production of her mischievous little comedy The Norwegians, a piece that recently ran at the Drilling Company on E. 78th Street in New York for a year and garnered a favorable NY Times review. I wish I could have accepted SWU's invitation to the opening weekend. I was in Sweden at the time, …
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 …