Recent Reviews
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, …
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 …
Review: Adam Sultan by Physical Plant Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on March 30, 2012
The Adam Sultan puppeteers pushed this envelope or bent this frame in several ways. First and most fundamentally, the puppeteers manipulated and changed the human actors throughout the play; they did so subtly as they reshaped postures and stances of the living to reflect advancing age.
For the committed theatergoer, this was a long-awaited premiere. The blended live-action and puppet play previewed at the 2012 Fusebox Festival. The preview tantalized audiences with its potential for taking many different directions. The premiere at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre on March 28 satisfied our aroused curiosity with a long sequence of wise story choices. They took us through some surprising ways yet never strayed from its emotional heart. Sure, it was about death, and …
Review: The Aliens by Hyde Park Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 26, 2012
Yes, these losers are geniuses -- once you accept Baker's premise that living in this world and making any artistic effort, however ineptly, gives one a glowing human dignity.
The Aliens by young play writing genius Annie Baker is a dazzling, offbeat oratorio of inarticulate thought and emotion. Out back of a Vermont coffee shop there's a dingy employee break area. K.J. and Jasper, guys from nowhere of consequence, have appropriated it as their own hang-out space, like a couple of raccoons nesting under a deck. K.J. sits motionless for long periods, lost in vague thought, surfacing from time to time to renew contact. …
Review: Wit by City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 24, 2012
Edson's creation Vivian Bearing has subsisted almost entirely in the rarefaction of the mind -- a childless, essentially friendless Vestal at the altar of academia. We live with her as she belatedly discovers and experiences the failing of the body that has carried that spirit.
It helps to have someone holding your hand when you look over the edge of the precipice. Even if you've always lived alone, felt self-sufficient and devoted yourself to the life of the mind. Margaret Edson's Wit is the portrait of literature professor Vivian Bearing, a devotee of 17th century English literature renowned for her publications on the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. At the age of 50 this scholar has been discovered to be …
Review: Wit by City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 24, 2012
Edson's creation Vivian Bearing has subsisted almost entirely in the rarefaction of the mind -- a childless, essentially friendless Vestal at the altar of academia. We live with her as she belatedly discovers and experiences the failing of the body that has carried that spirit.
It helps to have someone holding your hand when you look over the edge of the precipice. Even if you've always lived alone, felt self-sufficient and devoted yourself to the life of the mind. Margaret Edson's Wit is the portrait of literature professor Vivian Bearing, a devotee of 17th century English literature renowned for her publications on the metaphysical poetry of John Donne. At the age of 50 this scholar has been discovered to be …