Recent Reviews | CTX Live Theatre

Review: You Can't Do That, Dan Moody! by The Georgetown Palace Theatre

by Michael Meigs
Published on September 08, 2009

You Can't Do That, Dan Moody is not the sort of happily fictionalized singing and dancing spectacle that is regularly offered at tourist destinations. It's not slick and sometimes the text is leaden, but it is, ultimately, gripping. It's a participatory piece for Georgetowners, both those in the p

You Can't Do That, Dan Moody! offers spectators some cracking drama, particularly in the second half, with riveting re-enactments of brutality by the Ku Klux Klan and of the 1923 trial at the Georgetown courthouse in which district prosecutor Dan Moody became the first in the nation to convince a jury to convict and jail Klansmen.But in intention and form this production is directly in line with the epic origins of theatre. An epic, taken from the …

Review: El Cielo Nuestro . . . ¡Que Se Va A Caer!

by Michael Meigs
Published on September 04, 2009

Proyecto Teatro's imaginative production telling of an environmentally conscious "Chicken Little"-type story is a delight.

Proyecto Teatro's imaginative production telling of an environmentally conscious "Chicken Little"-type story is a delight. It runs again this weekend at the Dougherty Arts Center.The clever costumes alone are worth the modest price of admission to this all-Spanish-language frolic, where adults pay $8 and the youngest children only $2. Director Luis Ordaz and actor Guicha Gutiérrez have a wild sense of shape, color and transformation that the images here can suggest only approximately.The company's physical …

Review: Driving Miss Daisy by The Georgetown Palace Theatre

by Michael Meigs
Published on September 02, 2009

Each of the actors in the Palace cast is appealing, but the entropy sets in far too soon in this production.

Driving Miss Daisy is about nostalgia and trust, but it is also about entropy. Fortunate or not in this material life, we can all expect to age, to slow, and to become feeble. We may dislike growing old, but we shun the obvious alternative.That major theme should be mirrored in the dynamic of these familiar characters and in the rhythm of the production.We meet dowager Miss Daisy at a peak of annoyance. Momentarily confused a few days …

Review: El Channel by Latino Comedy Project

by Michael Meigs
Published on September 01, 2009

Dumb potty jokes and stupid wiggly sex jokes abound. Karinna Pérez plays a naive young thing who just can't understand why a man would want to get into her "empañada."

I had expected to like this show a lot more than I did.I'd seen and really appreciated the clever videos spots in which Guillermo Deleon as the "BC -- born citizen" compares notes with Adrian Villegas, as the "Mex" illegal. You can catch them either at the Latino Comedy Project website or on YouTube. They ran on MTV and they've been nominated for an Emmy award.In those one-minute sketches, each gets to shine. For example, …

Review: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by The City Theatre Company

by Michael Meigs
Published on August 27, 2009

The production rattles along so quickly that in order to appreciate it, one would need to know the story already -- for example, the reason that we find them in the countryside at the quirky professor's house.

Director Bridget Farias and her cast have put together a jolly version of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, with loving attention to the eccentricities of Narnia creatures. Audiences will enjoy the glim from the 2005 film version produced by Disney, which was the best selling DVD in 2006, but both that film and this script follow closely the novel for children written by C.S. Lewis in 1949.When this production was announced through ALT, one parent, …

Review: I [Heart] Walmart, by Capital T Theatre

by Michael Meigs
Published on August 26, 2009

This is vivid, exciting well-performed stuff. Too bad Capital T made the decision to bring all those gifted actors on at the end to harrangue us with factoids asserting that Walmart is, in essence, the most evil expression of repressive, heartless capitalism.

That great big pop heart in the title sends you the message: We're gonna send Walmart a great big exploding funny valentine, 'cause it's the place we love to hate!That fits very nicely with the demographic served by Capital T Theatre. Their Austin theatre public is generally young, generally irreverent, generally idealistic in a fuzzy Austin kind of way, and ready for amusement. Those of us who haunt the Hyde Park Theatre probably spend more time …