Recent Reviews
Review: Rumors by City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 16, 2011
Michelle Cheney and Wendy Zavaleta are together again, this time with a Lucy-and-Ethel dynamic, Michelle as the nutsy neurotic and Wendy as the feet-on-the-ground sarcastic cynic.
The greater Austin area hasn't lacked for productions of this 1988 farce by Neil Simon. A search of AustinLiveTheatre.com brings back announcements of stagings by the Wimberley Players in September, 2009, by the Renaissance Guild in San Antonio in July, 2010, by Leander's Way Off Broadway Community Players in January of this year and even by UT's student-run Broccoli Project last March. That sequence resembles the systematic trial-and-error of artillery ranging, back and forth, close …
Review: The Magic Fire by Red Dragon Players, Austin High School
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 13, 2011
The Magic Fire covers ground that has been covered elsewhere -- in many a play or film about life in wartime Europe, for example -- and it does so with a rewarding wealth of character and detail.
The Red Dragon Players at Austin High School consistently perform at levels considerably above those of their peers, a fact confirmed once again last year when their Over The Tavern was judged the winner among the one-act plays presented by the largest high schools in Texas. There's some good fortune and serendipity involved there, as well as healthy geographic/demographic input, but a good deal of the credit must go to Billy Dragoo, head of the …
Review: The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 12, 2011
Playwright Whitty starts with an intriguing hypothetical: what happens to Ibsen's Hedda Gabler after she so famously commits suicide in the last scene of the 1890 play of the same name?
The Further Adventures of Hedda Gabler by Jeff Whitty has an abundance of clever and not much of depth or heart. Director David M. Long does a bang-up job of making it a whizzing entertainment, having recruited three gifted Equity professionals to work with the six St. Ed's Equity-candidate actors relegated to secondary roles. Playwright Whitty starts with an intriguing hypothetical: what happens to Ibsen's Hedda Gabler after she so famously commits suicide in the …
Review: Henry V by Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 08, 2011
Brian Martin in the title role has the self confidence, presence and the big articulate voice of a fighting king.
This Henry V by The Baron's Men is a feast for the eyes. The elaborate Elizabethan wardrobe of the company goes well with the gratifying outdoor setting of the Curtain Theatre, Richard Garriott's lakeside replica in miniature of the Globe. Costume designers Pam Martin and Dawn Allee are current nominees along with Jennifer Davis for Austin's B. Iden Payne stage award for outstanding costume design, for this company's 2010 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. …
Review: Cloud 9 by Southwestern University
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 04, 2011
Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine is a gender bender and a time twister, a sly comic look at sex and sexual roles in the Victorian British Empire and in the contemporary United Kingdom.
Caryl Churchill's Cloud Nine is a gender bender and a time twister, a sly comic look at sex and sexual roles in the Victorian British Empire and in the contemporary United Kingdom. One of the many clever twists of the piece, the fruit of some intensive workshopping with actors, is that seventy-five years pass between the two acts but the characters age only thirty years. Churchill explained that that arose from the fact that her …
Review: Hamlet by Austin Shakespeare
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 02, 2011
Austin Shakespeare's Hamlet is a riveting evening, despite the questions and issues that this staging raises.
The question that must be addressed when discussing this Hamlet staged by Austin Shakespeare is not "Why cast Helen Merino for the title role?" but rather "What does casting Helen Merino as Hamlet do to the play?" Merino played Hamlet ten years ago for the same organization, then known as the Austin Shakespeare Festival, at free performances in Zilker Park downtown. She was an Austin favorite at that time; a 2001 article in the weekly …