Recent Reviews

Review: PHOTOGRAPH 51 by Anna Ziegler, by Filigree Theatre, Austin

Review: PHOTOGRAPH 51 by Anna Ziegler, by Filigree Theatre, Austin

by David Glen Robinson
Published on February 05, 2024

Superlative writing makes DNA discovery accessible; Anna Ziegler's script and Elizabeth V. Newman's direction provide the competition, misgivings, and misogyny behind that Nobel Prize.

Anna Ziegler’s play Photograph 51 could exhaust a reviewer’s list of cliché superlatives. And such hacking would show disrespect to an impressive work of art premiering in Austin. Photograph 51 relates the scientific story of the discovery of the role of DNA in the genetics of life. Science-based plays have exceptional challenges explaining scientific principles and activities to non-scientific audiences. The writer must exercise great care in order not to lose the average theatregoer. Anna …

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Review: The Spitfire Grill by Austin Playhouse

Review: The Spitfire Grill by Austin Playhouse

by David Glen Robinson
Published on January 29, 2024

Sixteen songs unpack considerable baggage and provide redemption all around. Austin Playhouse's capable performers enliven a somewhat dated script from 2000.

Austin Playhouse's musical The Spitfire Grill by James Valcq and Fred Alley uses sixteen songs to frame the story of a young female ex-con who chooses the hamlet of Gilead, Wisconsin in which to start a new life. She and the other denizens of the about-to-close café of the title unpack their considerable baggage over the course of the sixteen songs. Along the way, they find redemption. Much redemption, more than enough redemption to go …

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Review: Tina - The Tina Turner Musical by touring company

Review: Tina - The Tina Turner Musical by touring company

by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 20, 2024

TINA is full of exuberance, energy, and hits (it's a jukebox musical, after all). The cast does a wonderful job. The script is slanted so Tina's victories are without exception either Pyrrhic or monetary.

In 1967 Tina Turner was both the first African American and the first woman to be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Her story is well known to many. Born Anna Mae Bullock, she rose to stardom early in her career after joining Ike Turner’s band the Kings of Rhythm in 1956 at the age of seventeen. Her marriage to Ike Turner was marked by sixteen years of physical and emotional abuse, from …

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Review: The Watchmaker's Song by Ventana Ballet

Review: The Watchmaker's Song by Ventana Ballet

by David Glen Robinson
Published on December 11, 2023

The collaborative THE WATCHMAKER'S SONG, now annual, offers even more magic and diversity than its core story of The Nutcracker, in a setting that evokes dark times in Texas and a shift toward the light.

  In The Watchmaker’s Song by Ventana Ballet and Red Nightfall Dance Theatre, the sugar plums are sprinkled with extra magic and the flavor is tasted in our imaginations. In hoary ancient times, a curse was leveled against a hero (Aidan DeWitt), who became the robotic and mysterious nutcracker. The Watchmaker, an equally mysterious supernatural being played by Navaji David Nava, makes a magic watch to counteract the evil. As we might expect, the Watchmaker’s superpower …

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Review: 25th Season Finale, Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company

Review: 25th Season Finale, Kathy Dunn Hamrick Dance Company

by David Glen Robinson
Published on December 11, 2023

KDH's season finale was a dance rollercoaster of joys and sorrows by a company that lost city funding and stays alive thanks to private donations.

  A dancer set down on the floor in stillness holds the pose in release and surrender, perhaps finality. She holds the shape for a minute or more before the light begins a gentle,  achingly slow fade. The image takes us to full darkness and the end of a piece entitled “Dust.”   The multitalented Alyson Dolan clearly has the confidence and boldness to offer such intimate expression, as does her choreographer Kathy Dunn Hamrick. …

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Review: JACK AND AIDEN by Lane Michael Stanley and Tova Katz, Ground Floor Theatre, November 30 - December 16, 2023

Review: JACK AND AIDEN by Lane Michael Stanley and Tova Katz, Ground Floor Theatre, November 30 - December 16, 2023

by David Glen Robinson
Published on December 03, 2023

A bold, almost brutal portrait of the gay urban village, JACK AND AIDEN is stark and powerful. Stanley's vivid language, Katz's music, and Turner's direction hurl these two actors into unresolved life crises.

  Ground Floor Theatre in east Austin has just presented the world premiere of an important musical.  A collaboration of Lane Michael Stanley (book) and Tova Katz (music and lyrics), Jack and Aiden explores the lives of two gays, one cis, one trans, caught up in the life of hook-ups and cyber technology, where hooking up is easy and falling apart is easier. The couple’s emotions and desires draw them closer  into a relationship; and that’s a …

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