Recent Reviews
Review: The Nina Variations by Steven Dietz, Gobotrick Theatre Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 07, 2008
Dietz's Treplev and Nina rise and bank through the imagined world of the play like paragliders following thermals over a familiar landscape, giving us new views and unexpected possibilities.
Two persons, forty brief scenes, a scant hour and twenty minutes in a playing space about the size of a writer’s study – this was the most deeply satisfying theatrical experience I’ve had since beginning my exploration of Austin theatre last year.The Nina Variations is a theatre-maker’s dream, crafted by Stephen Dietz from the material of Chekhov’s The Seagull. Coincidentally, last year’s production of that play by Broken String Players at the Off Center was my first evening …
Review: Fantasmaville by Raul Garza, Teatro Vivo
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 05, 2008
An enigmatic spirit in the shape of a gigantic raccoon has been watching over the middle-aged party lady Flor, frequenter of beer halls who hasn’t lost a single dice game in the past 18 years.
Raul Garza’s Fantasmaville won last year’s Latin Playwrights award even before it had been produced.I’ve been anticipating the show for months, because I read the play last August. In fact, I auditioned for the “cranky old man” role of Akers, which seemed to be the best fit for my age, if not for my temperament."Fantasmaville" ("Haunted City") is here. Garza sets it in east Austin, complete with references to César Chavez Avenue, local schools, Capital Metro, Wheatsville …
Review: Still Life with Iris by Steven Dietz, University of Texas
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 01, 2008
For the Halloween performance of this children's fantasy I had the Joker on one side of me and Marilyn Monroe a couple of rows behind. But theirs were probably not the fantasies that Dietz was seeking to fulfill.
Steven Dietz wrote Still Life with Iris for the Seattle Children’s Theatre, which produced it in 1997.The UT production now onstage at UTPAC is as marvelously iridescent as a soap bubble lifting into the night sky. It won’t be much longer lived than a bubble, either, with only 8 performances scheduled. Scenery, costume, lighting and special effects are impressive, as well they should be – the back page of the program reads like a movie title crawl, with …
Review: Unbeaten by Shannon McCormick and Graham Reynolds
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 31, 2008
McCormick charms the crowd, interacts with them, responds to them. In one chilling moment, he stops front and center in a spotlight to deliver “the unheard voice between the coach’s ears” with the message that we all lose eventually.
American football is already highly stylized theatre.The fact that the sport has not spread beyond our country, unlike those other great American pastimes baseball and basketball, suggests that the Saturday and Sunday gridiron kabuki says something unique about the American mentality. A writer in The Economist once called it “the quintessential sport of the United States – a combination of committee work and violence.” Writer/actor/self-director Shannon McCormick has a keen eye for the characters and the conventions …
Review: Sleuth by Gaslight Baker Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 27, 2008
I was appropriately misdirected, surprised, and satisfied by this production. Congratulations to the actors and to the company for taking it on. I will continue to make that 30-mile trek down to Lockhart.
I continue to be impressed by the craft and love of theatre of the Gaslight Baker Theatre, which is “putting the art in Lockhart.” The broad two-story set installed in the former movie theatre on South Main Street is nothing less than epic, with columns, French doors, a working staircase, a billiard table, meticulous set decoration and furnishings that look authentic and very pricey. The production staff once again mastered that huge expanse of stage and …
Review: World of Horrorcraft by Scare for a Cure
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 23, 2008
Audience members acting as “beta testers” signed formal releases of liability that were pretty scary in themselves (what’s this about “you may be subjected to flying insects”???).
Last night I was in one of the first uninformed groups to pass through the haunted house set up by Scare for A Cure at the Elk’s Lodge near the downtown arts venues. The premise is that the Dunstan Interactive Corporation, flush with its success in video games, has recruited you as a “beta tester.” Their new product is a step forward - - instead of sitting glassy eyed at a monitor with a keyboard or …