Recent Reviews
Review: The Drowned World by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
The finale finds us with two couples, of unexpected composition, the first imprisoned in that drowned world and the second in inscrutable apotheosis.
Ken Webster's austere staging of this vision of a nightmare world uses the vocal and emotional projection of these four actors with the formal eloquence and depth of a string quartet. The music here is their inflection, counterpart, and conviction in a narrative that raises the hairs on the back of your neck. Ben Wolfe appears first, in solo, as Darren, citizen in a world drowned in gray totalitarianism and decay. Motionless, from the depth of …
Review: Our Angle in Heaven by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
Diana's funeral becomes a tourist event, replacing the temporarily closed wax museum at Madame Tussaud's -- and a family from the north of England leaves the bouquet and poster meant to celebrate "our angel in heaven."
The title of Maggie Gallant's solo show is an apt understatement, suggestive of the portraits she offers us. What angle do we take on heaven and the richness of its offerings for us? And where is that heaven? Who goes there? That's a lot of message for a simple misspelling. Maggie gives us eight characters in the twelve monologues she presents in about 45 minutes at the Salvage Vortex. It is perhaps telling that the one who ties …
Review: Drywall by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
This kind of TV sit-com writing is a constant diet of Hostess Twinkies. That's where Drywall digs in, with sharp fangs.
The vividly bald guy in a white t-shirt and carrying tools has just walked onstage, grimaced, and there's a chuckle of appreciative amusement from the speakers. He shrugs, as if annoyed, and there's another rumble from the audience on the speakers. Then he stalks off, to more recorded merriment. Canned laughter? What's going on here? Lights go down, then up again on two buddies, Doug and Peter. They're brainstorming ideas for a play, or at least a …
Review: My Bugatti Story by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
Ehrmann has a lot of himself invested in this narrative. At times he comes across as confessional or woodenly self-obsessed, perfectly in keeping with the character.
My Bugatti Story is playing at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre as part of the 2009 FronterFest Long Fringe. Writer Paul Ehrmann plays Alexander, the principal character. Though there's a cast of six, the show is essentially a long monologue by Ehrmann, interspersed with illustrative scenes. The near-monologue format is appropriate, for most of the action is taking place in his head, or at least in his fantasies. At the opening, Alexander is found in a …
Review: Kill Will by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
The finale? Think Jacobean revenge tragedy. I counted five corpses onstage at the last scene with two more characters rapidly approaching extinction. The company plays it all with sufficient seriousness for us to go along.
There's no Shakespeare in it, but it's certainly full of sound and fury. Signifying. . . .?Think of a crime caper that takes place in the sleazy east London, with a dose of pulp detective attitude, nasty obsession with lowlife violence, guns and Irish prolixity. Austin Alexander plays the lead in his own creation. Mickey Nichols is a guy in a bad way, roughed up in turn by black-leather gangster William Slate, by American cocaine middleman Sid …
Review: Love, Sex and the IRS by The Georgetown Palace Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 22, 2009
I enjoyed frequent chuckles at this nonsense, but overall, it just didn't work for me. I've spent some time puzzling about that, particularly since every other piece I've seen at the Palace has left me fully satisfied.
Actor/author Billy Van Zandt and his writing partner Jane Milmore banged out this comedy in 1979, backstage on the set of the first Star Trek movie. They took the principal roles in the debut performance at a dinner theatre in upper New York state. As Van Zandt tells it on their website, they were totally unprepared for the success of the piece or for the request from drama publishers Samuel French not only to publish that …