Recent Reviews
Review: Austin Puppet Incident 2011 by Trouble Puppet Theatre Company
by Hannah Bisewski
Published on December 11, 2011
Glass Half Full Theater and Trouble Puppet Theater Company are very Austin. Forget your notions of puppetry as entertainment for kids. These folks have serious, dramatic things to say.
Trouble Puppet Theatre Company's brand of inventive, challenging entertainment is so strong here in Austin that the company can fill up the Salvage Vanguard Theatre for two weekend nights with a miscellany from students at their puppetry workshop. Artistic Director Connor Hopkins shared his workshop for a month with collaborator Caroline Reck of Glass Half Full Productions and her students. Mind you, there were few novices among them -- performers at the Austin Puppet Incident …
Review: Poste Restante by The Secret Agents
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 11, 2011
There are many messages in their post office of the mind. But they're largely wordless, expressed in an ever-surprising modulation of mime, physical comedy, contortion, ballet, puppetry, music and video projection.
I went up to Tim Gallagher after the Secret Agents' first run-through at the Salvage Vanguard on Thursday, congratulated him and asked, "What's the hidden message?" I know: wrong question. But I couldn't help myself. I'm a narrative theatre guy, analyst, reporter, decipherer of mysteries. And I'd known a fair number of secret agents in my former career, even though I was in the overt diplomatic service, not the covert service. Tim gave me a …
Review: God of Carnage by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 10, 2011
There's plenty of clash in God of Carnage and there are unexpected turns, including destruction of precious items, self-control and self-esteem. Sometimes it's quite comic and other times it's closer to appalling.
Zach Theatre's God of Carnage is a beautiful mess. That's intentional. The set by Michael Raiford is sleekly contemporary with a bold abstract mural inspired by Cy Twombly spread across the back wall. This living room has a stark leather sofa, a Barcelona chair and large pillows in African-style fabrics, all positioned over a striking red floor so highly polished that the characters can probably see themselves in it. Somebody in this family has got …
Review: Burn This by 7 Towers Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 08, 2011
Aaron Black's frighteningly convincing portrayal of Pale is monumentally good -- the fierce solarization of the neutral males he embodied in Susie Gidseg's play di[verge] this past summer.
For this intimate, powerful urban drama the setting is superb: a balcony-level studio downtown with a kitchen, a vantage point from which one could study passing vehicles, lines of close-parked cars, and pedestrians hurrying to music venues nearby. It's a "studio" in every sense of the word: with the addition of a minimum of furniture it represents a New York loft. Situated in the Ballet Austin building at 501 West Third Street, it's an appropriate …
Review: Men of Tortuga by Street Corner Arts
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 07, 2011
After the furious build, playwright Wells' dénouement is less satisfying than everything that went before. But the ride is such an entertaining one that we can forgive him that.
Where is Tortuga and whom are these conspirators targeting? Tortuga is Spanish for "turtle" and there are Tortugas all over the place. Lots of islands, for example -- a former pirates' haven off the northern coast of Haiti, an island off Venezuela, others off Costa Rica, in the Gallapagos and down in the Florida Keys. There's an unincorporated community in California close to the border with Mexico. My brother, in town for a visit, misremembered …
Review: Natividad - A Homemade Pastorela Play by ALTA Teatro
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 06, 2011
Director Alejandro Pedemonte and playwright Miguel Angel Santana have put together a thoroughly contemporary Christmas story.
Every year since 1997 Austin's Spanish-speaking community has crafted a Christmas play, taking the model of the traditional Pastorela pageant of long date, in which the birth of Jesus is witnessed by a simple shepherd girl. As in virtually all folk theatre, the story can be told many different ways and styles. The sponsoring coalition ALTA (the Austin Latino Theatre Alliance) recruits a different director every year for the Spanish-language enactment, so that each Austin …