Recent Reviews
Review: Dividing the Estate by Zach Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 04, 2012
Eugene Lee's monologue is at once a distilled narrative, sermon and symbol; and it is decidedly Faulknerian. Its meanings are layered on at several levels, all in relatively few words.
The Zach Theatre is a great showcase for local and regional art and talent, claiming as it does all the advantages of location, etc. It seems to hold court over Lady Bird Lake, with hill country scenery upstream and the shining, multi-colored towers of Austin across the lake. I visited Zach to see Dividing the Estate, Horton Foote’s 1989 play about a Texas family falling apart over estate inheritance. To cut to the chase, the family had …
Review: Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Palindrome Theatre (2010-2013)
by David Glen Robinson
Published on May 13, 2012
If you are considering going to live theatre as the antidote to the many unsatisfying and expensive pastimes out there, Palindrome’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist is the first choice. Please find it and go.
The Up Collective is in one of my favorite places, in East Austin, specifically at 2326 E. Cesar Chavez St. The name is easy to get—one has to walk upstairs to a second floor gallery where the play is performed. The art on the walls is really, seriously good and is priced like it, too. Palindrome Theatre's set is simple, designed for mobility. It has two standing door frames with no doors, a table and …
Review: Sundown Town by Wimberley Players
by anonymous reviewer
Published on May 03, 2012
A thoughtful look backward a hundred years at the sharp contrast between the obligations of Christian charity and the racist attitudes common in the smalltown South.
Sundown Town by Kevin Cohea as staged by the Wimberley Players is a thoughtful look backward a hundred years at the sharp contrast between the obligations of Christian charity and the racist attitudes common in the smalltown South. The plot unfolds in rural Arkansas but these events or others very like them could just as well have occurred almost anywhere in the United States of that day and in fact throughout the twentieth century. With effective …
Review: The Laramie Project Ten Years Later by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 02, 2012
This second Laramie play is less effective because in face of the forgetting, the writer/investigator/players are necessarily presented as driven by a thesis. It's a thesis with which I agree as patently do those who attend this production.
You know these people; you're comfortable with them. Most likely because you attended their portrayal in March and April of The Laramie Project, but possibly also because you recognize them as the Zach regulars who have appeared before you so many times. The Laramie Project 10 Years Later has the reassuring buzz of a class reunion, which is something like the way it must have been for the Tectonic Theatre Project as they undertook the visits and research …
Review: The Dragon Play by Shrewd Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 10, 2012
Amelia Turner as the clever, graceful and finally intensely physical dragon girl deliver an electric, devastating speech about the sexual act -- a physical and sexual climax in itself serving at the same time as the climax that seals the link between the two dragon plays.
The Dragon Play confused me as I sat in the front row of the sparsely populated Blue Theatre on opening weekend. That was deliberate on the part of playwright Jenny Connell, abetted by Shrewds director Shannon Grounds. The director has given away enough of the story in a second video interview just released by the company, so I'm dropping no 'spoiler' by telling you the company is presenting two dragon plays, starkly different in style, alternating …
Review: A Room with a View by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 06, 2012
Forster's witty and sympathetic if somewhat patronizing portrayal of Lucy Honeychurch and those around her features amusing characters caught up in the most basic dramatic dilemma of all: who best deserves to make our sweet heroine happy?
A Room with a View at Austin Playhouse in Lara Toner's graceful adaptation of Forster's novel is serene fun. An ungracious critic -- say, someone who regularly posted grumbling letters to the Times of London -- might ask why the Playhouse bothered to concoct a presentation of the style regularly served up by the BBC on PBS's Masterpiece Theatre, but that imaginary critic would miss the point entirely. Another curmudgeonly observation might be that Mssrs Merchant …