Recent Reviews
Review: Grease by The Georgetown Palace Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 03, 2009
The Georgetown Palace Theatre is back to doing what they do best -- a rollicking big musical comedy with lots of dance,sparkling with a glitzy coating of happy nostalgia.
The Georgetown Palace Theatre is back to doing what they do best -- a rollicking big musical comedy with lots of dance,sparkling with a glitzy coating of happy nostalgia. Grease is no trail breaker, but it's for sure an entertainment where the whole family can kick back and enjoy. With the bonus that they'll learn that live theatre is so much more than the talking pictures from the 1978 movie with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.Everybody's doing …
Review: A Flea in Her Ear by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 02, 2009
J. Ben Wolfe does a wonderful slow burn, complete with barely visible facial tic. His single-minded comic stalking of Lucienne and a non-existent lover throw delicious danger and thrill into otherwise frivolous caperings.
In the madcap 19th century world of French playwright Georges Feydeau, two qualities in farce are certain to produce merriment: man's unfulfilled desire and woman's unsatisfied curiosity.No one ever says that, of course. This is not Oscar Wilde, his contemporary from across the channel.The ample, delighted laughter at Austin Playhouse's production of A Flea in Her Ear is provoked by antics, deceptions and astonishing coincidences that bring respectable bourgeois folk sneaking into the shady world of the …
Review: Seven Jewish Children by Cambiare Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 31, 2009
They use Churchill's words to depict human confusion, adult duplicity and wishful thinking, and the many possible reactions to horror, threat and trauma.
The speech for World Theatre Day written by Brazilian author Augusto Boal was read by Robert Faires of the Austin Chronicle. Boal's comments are brief, but they sum up a lifetime of theatre, political activism and teaching, following his arrest by the Brazilian military government in 1972 and twelve years in exile. Boal's principal concept is expressed immediately in the opening: All human societies are “spectacular” in their daily life and produce “spectacles” at special …
Review: The Heidi Chronicles by The City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 29, 2009
Wasserstein recalls shared moments and attitudes of the baby boom generation, making merciless fun of them; at the same time she presents us with characters wrapped in loneliness as they achieve career success.
Wendy Wasserstein, playwright of The Heidi Chronicles, died in 2005, cut down in full artistic activity by lymphoma. Her play Third, which premiered that year, was performed in Austin last September by the Paradox Players. The City Theatre has just opened The Heidi Chronicles for a four-week run, featuring a talented young cast, clever staging and some still unanswered big questions. One of five children of a wealthy Jewish family in Brooklyn, Wasserstein graduated from Mount Holyoke, then obtained master's …
Review: Bombs in Your Mouth by Hyde Park Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 28, 2009
They fill in the six-year void, unemployed Danny with stories of their father's decline and Lily with horror stories of work in a New York ad agency. She is smarter than Danny -- but in fact no more successful.
Losers are just more interesting than winners.There are just so many ways that they can go wrong. And it's so satisfying to watch as that happens. That's part of comedy -- that's why we laugh when the clown slips on the banana peel or when Moe gives the other stooges a savage poke. We chortle because we know that they're not really hurting.And in Bombs in Your Mouth by Corey Patrick, now playing at the Hyde Park …
Review: Human Sketches by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 24, 2009
Author Trey Deason's two-act piece is well crafted, peopled with sharply drawn central characters and examines serious, interesting issues -- although perhaps not those you might expect from the M.C. Escher sketch used on the poster.
This is a "world premiere," in public-relations-speak, and the folks at the Sam Bass Community Theatre once again show their inventiveness and their determination to be more than a simple source of weekend amusement for the suburbs of Austin.SBCT isn't a large group and they don't have the ample venues or resources of some other out-of-Austin theatres. But they make up for that in pluckiness. Following close on their accomplished production of funnyman Steve Martin's …