Recent Reviews
Review: Arsenic and Old Lace by Wimberley Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 02, 2011
My favorite moment in the play came when the jig appeared to be up; Ben-Moshe stepped forward, extending his hands to be handcuffed and instead received a hearty handshake from the droll, diminutive Marvin Carson as the thick headed Lt. Rooney of the police.
Joseph Kesselring's 1941 play Arsenic and Old Lace is a "golden oldie" kept alive for American culture by Frank Capra's 1944 film with Cary Grant and by community theatre productions such as the charming one currently at the playhouse in Wimberley. Theatre critic Mortimer Brewster has been brought up his maiden aunts Abby and Martha, and one wonders how he escaped noticing the fact that they're nuttier than fruitcakes. Mortimer's brother Teddy stalks about the …
Review: The Tempest by Actors From The London Stage
by Hannah Bisewski
Published on October 01, 2011
Even when an actor donned and then doffed an article of clothing to change characters every other line—and in spite of the humor of such a scenario—the mood of exotic mystery never diminished.
In the midst of the whirlwind of Shakespeare that is the current Austin theatre scene, audiences of this week's performance of The Tempest, put on by the intrepid Actors from the London Stage, were in for an exceptional and wildly successful rendition at the B. Iden Payne Theatre on UT's campus. For the past two years, a small troupe of AFLS actors has taken up a short fall residency at UT Austin, each time performing …
Review: Spring Awakening by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 27, 2011
The story's message --warning of the dangers of moral tyranny -- is sobering and predictable but ever-applicable, the dizzying, tongue-in-cheek music sending up the misguided adults throughout will leave audiences wondering whether the events were tragic or comic.
Spring Awakening won eight of the 2007 Tony awards, including that for best musical, and the powerful production opened by the Zach Theatre last Saturday shows you why. This very contemporary musical adaptation of Franz Wedekind's Spring Awakening has played across Europe, and the U.S. national touring company fielded by Broadway Across America visited Bass Hall for a week in October, 2009. Awakening has now settled in to the Kleberg Stage until November 13 playing …
Review: The Tempest by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 25, 2011
Bridget's Gang has a good time with their Shakespeare, and they're happy to greet the audience at the conclusion of the play. Like the institution of the EmilyAnn itself, they provide this community with a place of delight -- a magic island in the archipelago of the Hill Country.
In this hottest Texas summer on record you could be pardoned for suffering a touch of cognitive dissonance when you decide to drive through the beginnings of the Hill Country, 45 minutes southwest of Austin, to attend Shakespeare's last work, set upon a magical island surrounded by the Mediterranean. Wimberley, Texas, is ranch country, and these days the rolling landscape is starkly dry. Even the EmilyAnn's illustration reveals the situation: Laura Ray, portraying magician's daughter …
Review: The Cherry Orchard by University of Texas Theatre & Dance
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 24, 2011
The acting in the piece is strong, a fact that gives one an ever greater wistfulness in the 'what if' realm.
What was Brant Pope thinking? That's not just a curmudgeonly expostulation. AustinLiveTheatre has an affection for alt-versions, augmentations and re-interpretations of the classics. Relatively small audiences have benefited from the Shakespeare riffs of the Wondrous Strange Players, their antecedent Austin Drama Club and the annual inventions of the Weird Sisters Theatre Collective. ALT applauds the current Hedda roll -- two modern language versions of Hedda Gabler from Palindrome Theatre, the SVT's Heddatron and The Further …
Review: The Guys by Flash Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 19, 2011
Playwright Anne Nelson reduces the September 11 catastrophe to human proportions, giving us only two characters of flesh and blood on this stage.
The attack on the World Trade Center towers ten years ago was variously recalled and commemorated around town last week in schools, churches, lodges, assemblies and official ceremonies. The tone varied, according to the sentiments and the level of extrovert patriotism of those involved. The Austin Statesman ran a distasteful series of "Where were you then?" articles, as if any random individual's reaction to the flagrantly mediatized events could validate the nation's shock and anger. …