Recent Reviews
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …