Recent Reviews
Review: The Threepenny Opera by University of Texas Theatre & Dance
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 24, 2011
Most memorable of all in an evening that thrashes and enchants its audience is the near-finale of Schnack's "Call from the Grave," as Mack stands with the noose about his neck, contemptuous and berating, with the chilling refrain, "If you forgive me, I will forgive you."
UT's The Threepenny Opera was an astonishing production, of such quality and depth that it deserved to run for months. But the Oscar Brockett Theatre seats only about 200 and there were only seven performances. I organized a group of 16 to attend the first Saturday performance, and they walked away bedazzled. You can pity that one prospective group member who decided not to take up the offer because, he said, he's "allergic to opera." …
Review: Henry V by Velvet Rut Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 23, 2011
I like to think that Shakespeare as a hard-working actor and playwright would be entirely at home with the Austin Drama Club. He might object to abridgements of his text and he would be intrigued by the speakeasy atmosphere. But he would see actors and audiences breathing life into his pages.
Punk rock and garage bands give way in Austin, Texas, to speakeasy Shakespeare. The Austin Drama Club was chased by the City from its rental house on East 7th Street, set up out in the brushwood hills last summer with the scorpions, tried doing Julius Caesar at a biker bar in south Austin, and now appears to have found shelter in a ramshackle former supermarket at William Cannon and Westgate. The Community Renaissance Market is an ad …
Review: Man and Superman
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 21, 2011
Austin Shakespeare gives us the law of the jungle as practised in the drawing rooms of London. Shaw's side dish of philosophy, heaven, hell and Don Juan will be served up separately.
Austin Shakespeare's staging of Shaw's Man and Superman at the Rollins Theatre has the pleasures of a long agreeable evening with toffee and cigars. No game of whist or bridge, for the contest here is between Man and Woman, or, to wax a bit more Shavian, between Man the Romantic and Intellectual on one hand and Woman the Life Force on the other. Man doesn't stand a chance, of course. You may well ponder -- …
Review: Eurydice by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 10, 2011
The cast and production team produce Ruhl's sweet song of the end of life and time with elegant simplicity.
In Sarah Ruhl's world, stones can talk, the dead can send letters to the living, and the devil connives to send a fragile bride to her death so he can court her in the afterlife. On the far side of the river of forgetting, memory fades and the ability to read disappears. Young Orpheus, bereft in this life, telephones a long-distance information operator in an effort to try to locate his dead wife. Despite …
Review: Art by 5 x 4 Production Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 09, 2011
The French, oh, the French -- I squirmed often while watching 5 x 2 Productions' staging of Yasmina Reza's Art, because she captures with deadly accuracy the most galling aspects of the Gallic character.
The French, oh, the French -- I squirmed often while watching 5 x 2 Productions' staging of Yasmina Reza's Art, because she captures with deadly accuracy the most galling aspects of the Gallic character. You may well laugh at the absurdities of the premise and the reactions of the characters. Serge, a dermatologist, is proud of the painting by a fashionable artist that he has just purchased for "two hundred thousand" -- those are 1995 French …
Review: The Importance of Being Earnest by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 07, 2011
The faces are familiar, regulars all, and the only real surprise is Rick Roemer's enchantingly starchy and autocratic dignity as Lady Bracknell.
This "Trivial Comedy for Serious People" opened in 1895 and it was the last shining moment for Wilde's career as writer and dramatist. Soon afterwards he found himself in court, accused of immoral behavior and then sentenced to gaol. Because of that scandal the original production closed after only 86 performances. Since then it has become one of the most dependable and regularly revived comic satires on the boards. Wilde's earnest young men show themselves …