Recent Reviews
Review: The Pain and the Itch by Capital T Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 05, 2012
Norris writes with a scalpel whetted to such a fine edge that at first one doesn't realize the depth and damage of his adroit strokes as he dissects the bland, blind conceits of this all-American family.
Mark Pickell has an eye for mordant black humor, so Capital T's productions fit perfectly into Ken Webster's Hyde Park Theatre -- both into that odd and intimate space and into the ironic, brash, better-than-hip ethos of the place. If you like Ken's stuff, you'll love Mark's. And a further lure: the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago has premiered the last seven works of this playwright. Bruce Norris' savage deadpan flaying of the earnest American …
Review: Boom for Real by Paper Chairs
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 03, 2012
Let it be said now: the cast is the singular strength of this production, and Noel Gaulin is the primus inter pares.
It was Halloween night and I went to the theatre in costume as I always do. The show was Boom for Real by Jason Tremblay, produced by Paper Chairs. This company has a gift for finding truly unusual but serviceable performance spaces, albeit sometimes hard to find. I tramped through the crushed limestone parking lot of an industrial east Austin construction zone in my wobbly fireman’s boots, uncertain of my balance and vision behind my long-nosed mask …
Review: Ragtime by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 30, 2012
Ragtime is a big production for a big new theatre, one that says, loud and proud, that 'Austin's theatre' offers a level of artistic and technical excellence as good as any in the country.
The Zach's Ragtime is a huge -- I mean HUGE -- and lavish production, inaugurating its state-of-the-art 425-seat Topfer theatre. The flair, finish and finesse of this production are simply breath-taking. Ragtime is a fable of a faraway America, one that existed at the very opening of the twentieth century. In his 1975 novel E.L. Doctorow imagined a tangled story involving a prosperous bourgeois family in New Rochelle, an unmarried African-American couple and their child, and an impoverished …
Review: Vampire Lesbians of Sodom by City Theatre Company
by Stephen Meigs
Published on October 30, 2012
A man in a dress is funny for about 30 seconds. An actor playing a Charles Busch heroine, in a dress, with the endless gags, puns, and punch lines deliciously laced together, always original, and sometimes hysterically vulgar, is funny for the length of the show while making us also feel and care.
All politics is local, they say. Is all theater local, too? And can theater be politics? Find out. Go see Vampire Lesbians of Sodom. Even better, phone your right-wing conservative religious uncle and invite him to go with you to see it at the City Theater where it's now playing. Don't tell Uncle the name of the show, don't give the game away. Just say “Gee, Uncle, it's a comedy and the first scene is set in a …
Review: Mariachi Girl by Teatro Vivo
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 28, 2012
a charming, very Tejano experience, a fable about a young girl who dreams of performing with her father's mariachi band, even though he insists that the musical tradition must continue to be exclusively masculine.
At the Zach Theatre Teatro Vivo, the University of Texas and the Zach 'Theatre for Schools' program have been presenting Roxanne Schroeder-Arce's play to schoolchildren during the week and to the public on weekends. It's a charming, very Tejano experience, a fable about a young girl who dreams of performing with her father's mariachi band, even though he insists that the musical tradition must continue to be exclusively masculine. The performance is accompanied and supported by a real …
Review: A Playground Superhero by Pollyanna Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 28, 2012
Pollyanna has a patent pedagogic purpose: showing audience members the positive effects of inclusive play and showing that a bully may not be inherently bad. His behavior may be caused by stress and unhappiness.
Pollyanna's script by Andrew Perry, a regular collaborator, presents primary school audiences with Aaron Alexander as a gleefully imaginative young boy arriving at a new school. He and Griçelda Silva as his mother are a plucky pair, moving to a new town without the boy's father, who is absent on assignment somewhere -- perhaps with the military. The boy has a sunny disposition and makes friends easily. His games and his masquerades as cowboy, pirate, …