Recent Reviews
Review: Sylvia by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 29, 2008
After setting up that impasse, Gurney funks it. He ends the action and brings two of his characters onstage to speak directly to the audience. Their pair of whimsical, regretful little speeches dissolve the premises of the dilemma and essentially remove the enchantment that allowed Sylvia to talk.
On first impression, A.R. Gurney’s Sylvia, now playing at the Austin Playhouse, comes across as brainless, harmless fun, mostly thanks to the gleeful, energetic actress Andrea Osborne, portraying Sylvia, the stray dog found in a New York City park. Sylvia’s playful, adoring behavior completely captivates Greg (David Stahl), the middle-aged empty-nester who has relocated from the suburbs to the city, where he and his brainy wife Kate have found new jobs and a new life. Greg takes the …
Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream by University of Texas
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 20, 2008
Oh, Dad! Get a grip. Your Hermia is in love with Lysander, and your insistence is going to drive them both to elope, at night, via the enchanted forest where all those fairies hang out!
UT calls the Oscar G. Brockett Theatre an "intimate space." They are speaking Texas institutional intimacy here -- only 200 seats, arrayed about three sides of a huge square playing space under 40-foot ceiling rigged with lights, catwalks, hoists and other machinery. And with a built-in audience from those 50,000 UT students and 16,500 faculty and staff.When I arrived, all but breathless, 15 minutes before curtain time, I had to stand in a line of …
Review: Getting Married by George Bernard Shaw, Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 19, 2008
Shaw delights in putting all sorts of contrarian observations into the mouths of his characters. For example, Reg’s soon-to-be-ex-wife Leo scandalizes the men when she declares that she would quite like to have several husbands.
George Bernard Shaw wrote Getting Marriedexactly a century ago. To my delight, I discovered that the New York Times makes available a copy of Catherine Welch’s 3800-word review of May 24, 1908, a full page of the paper, including sketches of GBS and two actors. I haven’t read it yet, because with some difficulty I impose on myself the discipline of writing my own review before consulting others. But I couldn’t avoid absorbing Mrs. Welch’s subtitles:GEORGE BERNARD SHAW …
Review: Driving Miss Daisy, at Hill Country Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 14, 2008
This is a comedy of character, not one of farce. The pace is deliberate, and the relationship builds gradually before our eyes.
It’s a good thing that the Hill Country Community Players out near Marble Falls post a map on their website. When I keyed in “4003 FM 2147 West, Marble Falls, TX 78654,” Google Maps gave me a location that was a tortuous ten miles away from their locale. Google would have sent me way east of US 281, when in fact the HCCT is located on the road running by Cottonwood Shores in route to …
Review: The Three Sisters, Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 14, 2008
Sounds like a downer, doesn’t it? But no, it isn’t at all – Chekhov draws each of the characters vividly and director Sheila Gordon keeps her actors bouncing off one another, taking the greatest possible advantage of the remarkable, large “theatre in a square” that is the Mary Moody Northern Theatre
St Edward’s Mary Moody Northern Theatre with its current production of The Three Sisters of Chekhov has again realized a fine synergy by adding two professional actors to an admirable cast of undergraduates.The quality and success of university productions in the Austin area is almost depressing – so much talent and energy! This is a great boon for those of us who take the time to explore it, but it seems strange to have all that star …
Review: Ophelia, adapted from Shakespeare by Dustin Wills for Tutto Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 12, 2008
Wills’ script is a dog’s breakfast of texts, mixing contemporary adolescent slang (“Oh, shit!”) with pseudo-Elizabethan talk with Shakespeare’s 24-carat verse from other characters or other plays jammed unexpectedly into the mouths of the Ophelias.
The Ophelia – or Ophelias – of Tutto Theatre Company appearing currently at the Blue Theatre in east Austin is a puzzle and a frustration. The more deceiv’d Ophelia of Shakespeare has deep resonance in our tradition. She is the enamoured, disappointed, dutiful daughter who returns her lover’s tokens per her father’s instructions and in complying with filial and social obligation becomes the pawn and victim of both sides. Trapped in an impossible situation, powerless and then …