Recent Reviews
Review: Iced Tea in Texas by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 02, 2014
Everybody loves Bernie, judging from the theatre crowd turnout for Bernadette Nason's third autobiographical one-woman show. I'm no exception. Checking the files, I find that I positively gushed when I reviewed installment no. 2, Dinner in Dubai in 2012. I missed the opener Tea in Tripoli in July 2011, but I have some vague hope that one of these days she'll provide us all a four-pack, perhaps on successive evenings serving tea in Tripoli, dinner in Dubai, iced tea …
Review: The Cowboy from Corona by The Hourglass Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 02, 2014
For her simple tale of a New Mexico incident Cindy Vining uses the metaphor of Purgatory as described by Dante in the Divine Comedy (ca. 1320). The framework is Christianity lite, without the complications of theology. We're greeted with song by a not-quite-yet-heavenly choir, all dressed in white. The recently deceased Captola, known as Cappie, is happy to arrive to the afterlife from rural New Mexico. She's looking forward to the climb up the mountain toward the …
Review: Gidion's Knot by Capital T Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 01, 2014
The setting at the Salvage Vanguard's black box is that of a fifth-grade classroom. In contrast to those of many other FronteraFest presentations in this space, the room seems spacious. A long greenboard runs across the rear. Those two rows of school desks have lots of room between them. Bright images and posters carry optimistic slogans. The kids are gone -- the kids are gone at every moment in this piece, both physically and in …
Review: The Sniper's Nest by Last Act Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 31, 2014
The Corpus Christi friends who founded Last Act Theatre Company in mid-2011 have proven dab hands at locating 'found' theatre spaces in Austin, a history that in some ways is a counterweight to Elizabeth Cobbe's piece last week in the Austin Chronicle on vanishing theatre venues. For Lisa Soland's two-actor contrafactual depiction of Lee Harvey Oswald's role in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, they were even more creative. They located a windowless underground room accessible …
Review: The Liberty Belles
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 30, 2014
Carolyn Kennedy's script was still in its workshop phase, producer Peter C. Graupner advised the expectant audience. Musical numbers would be presented a capella because the company's accompanist had dropped out late in rehearsals. That loss didn't seem to faze this cast of troopers, every one of them portraying a character whose name began with "B": Aunt Bebe, sisters Billie and Bobby, sidekick Bridget, ingenue songstress Betsy, extroverted empresario Buddy, tender young male lead Benny and soldier's-gal-disguised-as-a-bellhop …
Review: The Relentless Pursuit of Ice by Punchkin Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 28, 2014
In theatre world, a space bounded only by the imagination, the playwright and company can take us almost anywhere. The battlements at Elsinore; Osage County; the humble Loman household; or eerie reaches that seem beyond space and time. Samuel Beckett did it best, at least for me when I was reading in, a long time ago. Vladimir and Estragon, Hamm and Clov in Endgame, Krapp and his last tape. Nowadays apocalypses are as common as …