Recent Reviews
Review: An Ideal Husband by Austin Shakespeare
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 14, 2009
Wilde has a message -- approximately, "We men adore women for their imperfections but you women will insist on putting your men on a pedestal, obliged to perfection."
The conventional staging of Oscar Wilde, within the frame of a proscenium, gives us a bright window into the highly mannered scene of London's Victorian upper classes.For Austin Shakespeare's An Ideal Husband in the Long Center's Rollins Theatre, the audience surrounds the stage. This staging in-the-square gives us a visual kaleidoscope of witty epigrams, paradoxes, brilliant costumes and exquisitely good manners. There's a technical challenge here, since at any given moment an actor will be standing with …
Review: The Shadow Box by North by Northwest Production Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 11, 2009
As Agnes, the dutiful daughter, Miriam Rubin delivers a devastating performance, one of range and subtle intensity. Though she is largely silent in the early scenes, Agnes is the pivot of the play.
Now, here is a very frightening place -- a hospice somewhere in California, in which a disembodied therapist with a warm but neutral voice projects himself into your cottage once a day. "How are you feeling? Would you like to tell me about it?" That voice is kind, as calmly reflective and enigmatic as a mirror, and it offers not the slightest shred of hope or counsel.You look good, you might have a few physical twinges but …
Review: The Secret Lives of the InBetweeners by The Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 09, 2009
In all this mess, the most interesting character is None of the Above.
Aaron Brown's musical at the Vortex benefits from a strong cast, Bonnie Cullum's assured direction, and a bouncy score, well executed by a five-piece band including piano, keyboard, guitar/bass, drums and a cello. You can relax and laugh, sympathize with the dilemmas of poor Joe (Jonathan G. Itchon, below) and his acquaintances, and generally have a good time.But as for those Inbetweeners -- they seem to be the target audience for this piece, folks of …
Review: Almost, Maine by Gaslight Baker Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 09, 2009
Playwright Cariani takes them in some surprising and very comic directions, sometimes applying a deft dab of magical realism.
Lockhart, Texas, is about as far as you can get geographically from this mythical almost-town in the wilds of Maine, but that hardly matters. Director Randy Wachtel and the Gaslight Baker cast of 16 actors open a big box of valentines here. Warm, humorous, comic and sometimes slightly surreal, these nine skits with a little modification could have been played anywhere.The Gaslight Baker motto is "Putting the ART in Lockhart." Anyone who has been following …
Review: Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 07, 2009
Ben Weaver sparkles in his role as Albert Einstein. Contained, naive and sincere, he has a Charlie Chaplin purity to him, a wholesome antidote to Martin's manic plotting.
Round Rock's Sam Bass Community Theatre gives us a charming production of this quirky play by America's quirky funny man Steve Martin.Here's the premise: since Pablo Picasso used to hang out at a bar-café in Paris called "The Nimble Rabbit," just suppose that one morning in 1904 Albert Einstein happened to meet him there. Einstein was a poorly paid patent examiner but by night he was working on his "Special Theory of Relativity." Two of the …
Review: Things in Life by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 03, 2009
Imagine, if you can, this very very Anglo looking guy converting himself into a 63-year-old black man who ran a hotdog concession at a ball park for years. When he started to go there despite our age of political correctness, I almost held my breath.
Ben Prager's Long Fringe presentation carried the title "Things in Life," sufficiently enigmatic to cover just about anything that he might have wanted to do. The fest blurb advised only, "Actor/playwright Ben Prager uses a series of monologues to portray with unblinking realism a half dozen familiar types in various stages of life."He deserved his artistic license, considering that he has written seven shows of monologues and his "Four Monologues" was picked as one of the …