Recent Reviews
Review: The Lucky Spot by Austin Community College
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 11, 2011
These pralines come in a very handsome box. It's just before Christmas, but you can almost smell the Louisiana marshes when those doors at deep center stage swing open.
These pralines come in a very handsome box. Peter Sukovaty's design for the interior of the Lucky Spot dance hall in rural 1930's Lousiana is graceful and meticulously detailed, the lighting is rich and subtle, and the music that accompanies and accentuates the action includes dance music and even a couple of Hank Williams numbers. It's just before Christmas, but you can almost smell the Louisiana marshes when those doors at deep center stage swing open. …
Review: Girls' Night by touring company
by Hannah Bisewski
Published on November 08, 2011
The production does achieve the goal announced in that opening announcement: those in the audience -- almost entirely women -- are on their feet, singing their hearts out along with the women on stage.
A booming, exuberant voice blasts a too-casual introduction, announcing what will be a romping performance and warning that more than a few theatre conventions will be broken over the course of the evening. Flashing lights in gaudy colors frame an elevated platform with a lone microphone, suggesting we’re in for a selection of glitzy show tunes. Given that all this is set in the Long Center’s cavernous Michael and Susan Dell Hall, one wonders how Girls’ …
Review: Guest by Courtesy by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 08, 2011
The point of these shenanigans is that these modern ladies are flinging that big fat etiquette book right out the window. And they're having a fine time doing it.
On their opening night Hannah Kenah and Jenny Larson attracted an audience with lots of youngish faces more often lit by footlights, spots and stage lighting than by house lights. Those audience members were happily anticipating an entertainment that had been in gestation for two years. The two well known and well liked Austin actresses had presented workshop versions of Guest by Courtesy in May and November 2009 as part of the SVT's Works Progress Austin series. …
Review: Three Viewings by Trinity Street Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 27, 2011
These stories start in the dark of tenuously mastered emotion and they grow toward the light. Bob Beare and his cast make us care about every second of that progress.
Those who attend Trinity Street Players' Three Viewings by Jeffrey Hatcher will be spending some time in the dark with these faces. Each will feature in a solo act, navigating the fragile thread of human emotion like a tightrope walker. Or, to use the German expression for it, like a 'rope dancer,' because these narratives are not as predicable as a taut line. These characters inhabit the same world and speak to us from the same space …
Review: Titus Andronicus by Last Act Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 26, 2011
The sparse opening night audience for this production was rapt, almost stunned by what they heard and saw. Amidst the intensity of action and image in that intimate outdoor space the cast's conviction, diction and projection were superb.
Austin likes its hellish Halloweens and on that score Titus Andronicus deserves standing-room-only audiences and ticket queues around the block, down there on César Chávez Avenue just a few blocks east of Interstate 35. Forget all that stuff about Shakespeare they taught you in high school and college. This one he wrote really early in his career, in 1591 or so when he had only a couple of comedies and the three-part history Henry VI under his belt. …
Review: Night of the Living Dead by Weird City Theatre
by Hannah Bisewski
Published on October 24, 2011
The action is as fast-paced as the film, and before long zombies are clawing at the Laffy Taffy innards of characters we meet only briefly.
A note to the nervous: Weird City Theatre’s Night of the Living Dead will have you clenching the edge of your seats, squinting into the darkness to see if a zombie is lumbering in your direction. Director John Carroll’s arrangement of the performance space at the Dougherty Arts Center manipulates spectators to facilitate that sense of terror. A runway extends from the traditional proscenium, separating the audience down the middle and leading to a smaller stage behind …