Recent Reviews
Review: Iolanthe by The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 17, 2009
Victorians are reputed to have been sexually repressed, one result of which was the fashionable obsession with fairies -- not with the self-aware and sometimes swaggering ones of our own day, but, rather, with barely pubescent young women.
What a sensation Gilbert & Sullilvan must have been back then, the 19th century London equivalent of our Capitol Steps and Second City rolled into one! In fine satirical style, in their best known works they took on the Empire, the peerage, exotic Asia and the Royal Navy. The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Austin in its 34th year brings us with Iolanthe their mockery of Parliament itself, pairing the pompous velvet-clad peers of the House of Lords with diaphanous fairies …
Review: Nunsense by The City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 16, 2009
McAtee has won our hearts by then, so she can play dizzy misadventure of the very pure Reverend Mom with clever wonder and a great build of physical comedy.
This saucy, sparkling production of a popular favorite plays merrily with its basic premise: even if you're very, very good, you can laugh and dance to the joy of life. Dan Goggin's idea is so simple that it started out as a line of greeting cards. Their immediate popularity prompted him to put his mischievous nuns on stage. He reworked a warmly received trial run (of 38 weeks!) into a longer piece that opened off …
Review: The Frog Prince, musical by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 15, 2009
how often are you going to get to see a grown-up frog do a rap lesson foretelling the plot? He can't reveal to anyone his real princely identity, and (1) he has to live in the palace, (2) the princess has to tell him a secret, and (3) she has to fall in love with him.
Concerning children's theatre, let me come clean in the first paragraph. By the time I was 18 I had performed as a pasha, a pirate and a king for a children's theatre in north Alabama. I was stage-struck for life. That particular community children's theatre is entering its 49th season. The Scottish Rite Children's Theatre (SRCT) is much younger than that but it is much more richly endowed. Established in 2004 through the efforts of …
Review: The Wizard of Oz (Austin Drama Club) by Austin Drama Club
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 09, 2009
The lighting is dim but the show is not dark, despite the Drama Club's poster of a Dorothy appearing to come from the undead. It's principally a visual transformation, an extended solarized image, since Lavergne's script is mostly verbatim from the movie.
The great myths exercise a terrific and sometimes terrifying influence on us. For example, I've been driving around Austin listening to Derek Jacobi -- first, his recitation of Mallory's Le Mort d'Arthur, and more recently, his reading of the Robert Fagles translation of The Iliad. Those are stories that shaped the self concepts of the ancient races and nations. The narratives and the rich language exercise a hypnotic influence on a listener today, despite the veil of …
Review: Black Snow by Tutto Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 05, 2009
Tutto Theatre gave us a bouncy, funny harlequin-esque farce. Gabriel Luna was comically suicidal as the novelist seeking to deal with the happily deranged theatre company.
I saw one of the concluding performances of Black Snow but because of visitors and a trip out of town I did not have the time to review it in a timely fashion. My memory is that Tutto Theatre gave us a bouncy, funny harlequin-esque farce. Gabriel Luna was comically suicidal as the novelist seeking to deal with the happily deranged theatre company. Smaranda Ciceu as the Stanislavsky figure was a hoot -- a senile Groucho Marx …
Review: Oceana by The Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 03, 2009
This is a concatenation of sea myths and, frankly, not much of a story. Except for the requirements for gymnastics and a very brief moment of nudity in the closing scene, Oceana could be offered as a school pageant with its agreeable, unremarkable melodies, percussion, and a sea-green message.
There is, indeed, an oceanic feel to the staging of this production. Arriving spectators are welcomed by undulatingt costumed young persons bathed in shifting blue and green lights designed by Jason Amato. The actors are welcoming, slithery, playful and exotically costumed. Director/author Bonnie Cullum extends the compact playing space of the Vortex vertically, transforming it at times into the visual equivalent of an aquarium. She stations her three singing sirens on a high shelf across the back, …