Recent Reviews
Review: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by Chaotic Theatre Company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on September 16, 2011
The players of Chaotic Theater Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) are feigning madness half the time. The rest of the time they really are mad.
Though This Be Madness . . . When accused of madness by Rosencrantz, Hamlet replies, “I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.” The players of Chaotic Theater Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) are similarly feigning madness half the time. The rest of the time they really are mad. With more costume changes than a Lady Gaga show, more pop cultural references than …
Review: Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) by Wondrous Strange Players
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on September 14, 2011
Leonardo’s wife crosses the stage, desperation pouring in torrents from her mouth, “Where is he? Where is he?” The inevitable seems suddenly so blithely evitable . . . .
Darkness at the Break of Noon: Federico García Lorca’s Blood Wedding The stage is stark, the lights are dim, the crickets and the wind are rumbling in the background. A woman, weary and worried, enters the room and falls into a stiff chair. Her son comes through with the intention of going to work. The word knife enters the conversation and the mother explodes, going from worry to wailing at the world’s iniquities. She is …
Review: Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) by Wondrous Strange Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 14, 2011
The Wondrous Strange Players deliver a challenging and intense evening with this piece. The narrative style is relatively ghostly ghouly, along the Halloween traditions of local theatre, but that is consistent with their own history.
From Andalucía to Appalachia via Austin The Wondrous Strange Players have evolved and developed in Darwinian fashion despite the difficulties of schisms, bootstrapping and homelessness, and they now occupy a real theatrical space at the cavernous Community Renaissance Market at William Cannon and Westgate. They're still staging in the western corridor of what used to be an Albertson's grocery store, but they've acquired tall black drapes, rigging, and simple lighting instruments sufficient to turn it …
Review: Hair by City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 02, 2011
But on the evidence of the City Theatre production, Hair reveals itself principally to be about sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll, to quote Ian Drury and the Blockheads (1977). And I like it.
City Theatre's production of the 1968 musical Hair is easy to look at, lively, familiar and loud, all of which qualities I consider to be virtues. For someone who knew every note of the 1967 cast album but had never seen it on stage, City's Hair was like a binge on vanilla Oreos. Jeff Hinkle, his four choreographers and that enthusiastic cast of twenty actor-singers keep the stage full and lively almost non-stop. They out-do …
Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream by Weird Sisters Women's Theater Collective
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 25, 2011
The real stand-out, however, is the doyenne of this collective, Susan Gayle Todd. Aptly, she is Peter Quince the carpenter, the captain of this imaginary company of rude mechanicals.
Once a year, a theatre production of the Weird Sisters Collective briefly appears like a friendly comet in the Austin evenings. Like comets, they're "wanderers," at least in recent years -- you need to be alert for news of them each July or August, because the venues for their productions have changed from year to year. They had planned to do the Jacobean drama The Roaring Girl by Dekker and Middleton, under the guidance of …
Review: Hamlet (Austin Drama Club 6th version) by Austin Drama Club
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on August 22, 2011
Austin Drama Club’s sixth production of Hamlet is not only a look at the characters' individual mental breakdowns but also a nod at the group’s own journey.
An Unweeded Garden: Austin Drama Club’s 6thProduction of Hamlet Many will argue in favor of a favorite song or play is but few will put their money on what is the best. It is easiest to pinpoint what is the ultimate movie or band when one is, say, a freshman in college. Shakespeare is the best writer! Death Cab for Cutie is the most sublime band ever! Dostoevsky has captured the true infirmity of the …