Recent Reviews
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
Review: The Wedding or the Rebellion by Reckless Youth Theatre Collective
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 27, 2014
Becca Plunkett's romp The Wedding, or The Rebellion is a Punch and Judy show for young adults. The identities have been shuffled to emphasize how grotesque the culprits are. Here's a text that glories in vulgar, coarse and offensive language, and a writer who marshals those many and inventive epithets for intercourse, fellatio, cunnilingus, genitalia, sexual orientation and subjugation into a sideshow that delights a hormone-infused audience, many of them her contemporaries from Southwestern University. …