Recent Reviews
Review: Brass Ring by A Chick and A Dude Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 24, 2008
The major problem undermining all that really brilliant, character-revealing dialogue is the series of “gotcha” plot revelations in the concluding minutes.
Okay, we’ve been here before. The small house at the Hyde Park Theatre wraps around a set that could represent an anonymous, nearly vacant apartment in a half-demolished tenement building. Tom Waits is growling “Dead and Lovely” on the sound system in full derelict mode, followed by some country music phantasmagoria about facing the electric chair. Down-market Harold Pinter, maybe, or Sam Shepard. Danger, barren stage and threat.In Brass Ring, playwright Shanon Weaver of “A …
Review: Voces de Vivo by Teatro Vivo
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 22, 2008
The sense of community at Austin’s Teatro Vivo is tangible. One has a warm, expectant feeling, like the anticipation of attending a school production where one knows many of the actors.
The sense of community at Austin’s Teatro Vivo is tangible and reinforces the appeal of the consort. One has a warm, expectant feeling, much like the anticipation of attending a school production where one knows many of the actors. At a high school or college play, one is additionally disposed to forgive occasional slips or stumbles because one likes the participants so much. Teatro Vivo’s familiar participants don’t require that indulgence. They are credible, creative …
Review: Twelfth Night by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 11, 2008
Director (yclept "Master of Play") Beth Burns, just relocatedfrom Los Angeles, achieves a quick-paced, highly entertaining and almost too short evening of entertainment.
Twelfth Night, just opened at the convenient downtown location close to the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, is a graceful, sprightly production of Shakespeare's comedy of parted twins, mistaken identities, and the merciless mocking of overweening ambition. This is the one in which the dour Malvolio, steward to Lady Olivia, is duped by two roysters into smiling, making love overtures to his lady, and appearing in yellow stockings, all cross gartered. And Viola, shipwrecked, masquerades …
Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor by The Weird Sisters Women's Theater Collective
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 08, 2008
You could imagine "Turnabout is fair play" would be a pretty good heraldic device for the Weird Sisters Women’s Theatre Collective.
Turnabout is fair playmight be the theme for The Merry Wives of Windsor. Penurious, lascivious Sir John Falstaff is out for “cony catching” throughout the play but he just can’t learn his lesson. Falstaff (Courtney Brown) aims to trick and seduce the merry wives of the title: Mistress Margaret Page (Leslie Guerrero, left) and Mistress Alice Ford (Christa French, right).Highly amused by his presumptions, the good ladies entice the lecher to assignations three times, and …
Review: The Taming of the Shrew by The City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 02, 2008
If you like Shakespeare, if you enjoy a knockabout farce with personable young actors, if you want to see new opportunities for this promising company, GO. See this show!
This presentation of Taming of the Shrew is a gem.So I was baffled to find that on Friday night this company of a dozen talented and attractive actors was performing before an audience totaling only 16 persons.Why hasn't the word gone out? This is the second weekend of five, and given the quality of the show, the place should be packed. I spent $25 for the "reserved' seats, even though tix are regularly $15 and …
Review: The School for Scandal by The Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 01, 2008
Brenna Pritchard, also a talented song-writer, has an animated valentine-shaped face framed with a flapper’s short bob. Hayley Armstrong, with ingenious expression and mime, slithers herself into an entirely convincing sn
Summer theatre programs for young persons are wonderful. I got my own start treading the boards in just such an enterprise. The Vortex Repertory in east Austin has run its tuition-free program for 13- to 17-year-old actors since 1991. The theatre has racked up awards and the participating students have gotten their own rewards, intrinsic and experiential. For this production of Sheridan’s School for Scandal the company of 14 actors worked with Vortex resident artists …