Recent Reviews
Review: Uncle Vanya by Breaking String Theater
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on June 20, 2011
Yet, a lively and direct translation is just one of the few things this production has to offer. The set design and the lighting are bewitching. Breaking String transforms the austere confines of the Off Center into a virtual diorama of the life of the Russian nobility of the 1890’s.
The Tragedy of the Individual “Why am I old?” shouts Uncle Vanya about mid-way through the play bearing his name. He doesn’t ask anyone in particular and he doesn’t expect an answer. It is a statement, a question, an interjection as well as a plea. Perhaps he’s speaking to himself, perhaps to his family and perhaps to God. He is forlorn, lost, meandering and, at best, seeking answers to questions he’s always wanted to …
Review: Independence by Paradox Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 18, 2011
Independence moves quickly, draws us into its vivid little world and convinces us of the vitality of each of these women. Blessing recreates the heart pangs of growing up and the regrets of the family that never really existed.
Independence, first staged in 1983, is one of the earliest of Lee Blessing's theatre works. It's a tidy, well constructed box-set play that announces its theme open-faced with the very title. The fact that the setting is Independence, Iowa, misleads no one. That speck on the map, population of about 5,500, stands for AnyTown, USA, or at least, AnySmallTown, USA. Blessing probably started with a schematic diagram: small town, an intermittently crazy mother, …
Review: The Flair of Sam Bass with The Tempest Project
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 09, 2011
Community theatre in Round Rock provides a season of comfortable box-set comedies and dramas -- and once in a while, to dazzle 'em, a magic cabinet like this one.
How much magic can you pack into the box? The Sam Bass Community Theatre has seats for 52 in that modest structure on Lee Street in Round Rock, north of Austin. The building once served as the Union Pacific depot in town, and one assumes that there wasn't need to serve a lot of passengers. So this theatre can entertain a maximum of just a few more than 200 persons during each week,or about …
Review: Lear (adapted) by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 05, 2011
This Lear and Ramirez's approach oblige me to acknowledge a divide that I dislike: that between my own twentieth-century cultural consciousness, rooted in reading and narrative text, and the peculiar twenty-first century media mind of contemporary America.
Shakespeare's great tragedy is a fable that dares portray in resounding verse some of mankind's most common but most harrowing issues. The tyranny of the selfish old, set against the arrogance of the selfish young; the toxic dissolution of family ties and family hierarchy; the horror of ageing and senescence; the inevitability of human downfall; ambition, evil, and the sacrifice of innocents. These huge and inescapable issues are rooted in the human condition. We …
Review: Lear (adapted) by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 22, 2011
Lear's rage against the storm is converted into a confused confrontation with paparazzi, and key narration is projected as sound-bites from MSNBC-style talking heads, proving that style can defeat substance.
Short take: The Vortex version of Lear features several accomplished Austin actors, including most notably Jennifer Underwood in the title role, but director Rudy Ramirez trivializes Shakespeare's great epic of royal folly and delusion. Lear's rage against the storm is converted into a confused confrontation with paparazzi, and key narration is projected as sound-bites from MSNBC-style talking heads, proving that style can defeat substance. Cross-gender casting for the roles of Kent and Edda (Edgar) is puzzling; less …
Review: Hedda Gabler by Classic Theatre of San Antonio
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 20, 2011
Asia Ciaravino is haunting in the title role. That quiet, watchful oval face is almost unblinking, She has the unconscious beauty of a woman who little cares whether others look at her or not.
Mr. and Mrs. George Tesman return to Norway after six months of honeymoon in Europe. In their absence family friend Judge Brack has arranged the purchase of a city mansion at great expense and furnished it lavishly. Ibsen's Hedda Gabler opens on the morning after their arrival at the new residence and a new domestic life. Allan S. Ross designed this set with meticulous detail. The audience has the time to study the heavy furniture, carpets, …