Recent Reviews
Review: Suddenly Last Summer by Filigree Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on October 07, 2024
Huge talent and commitment to Tennessee Williams's unrelenting plot and imagery make Filigree Theatre's SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER a vital, unmissable production
Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly Last Summer pries open the boiler door to reveal the flames of 1930s passion, mores, and the corruption of the thoroughly guilt-ridden ultra-wealthy in Great Depression New Orleans. The play isn't as well-known as Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or A Streetcar Named Desire, but in the hands of Elizabeth V. Newman and her excellent cast at Factory on Fifth in downtown east Austin, this weighty piece from the Willliams canon …
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Review: Hungry Teenage Track Stars by Broad Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 03, 2024
What a vivid portrayal of the the stress of adolescence! Five lively, questioning young women struggle with uncertainty, imposed norms, and their own developing emotional lives.
Theatre is a gymnasium for empathy, a Facebook meme admonishes us. But it's also a Tardis, a magic space that can take you anywhere, anytime, to anyone. That's how on a Friday night we found ourselves in the aching space of female adolescence. First sight: two rows of teenage women, squintng at us as if they were ranged on the other side of a two-way mirror. Wordless beneath a roar of pop music, …
Review: A Prayer for Peace by Blue Lapis Light, Austin, to September 29, 2024
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 23, 2024
Ethereal and serene, performing on silks and in harness, Blue Lapis Light's company sends A PRAYER FOR PEACE from Austin to the universe.
Blue Lapis Light, the company headed by longtime Austin choreographer and performance artist Sally Jacques, is presenting A Prayer for Peace. Its newest production takes place outside on a tall office building in west Austin. Literally on the face of a tall office building. Yes, this is the company that performs in harnesses at great heights. In recent years, they have added show pieces in silks, the gymnastic mode with performers holding and climbing long …
Review: Macbeth by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 23, 2024
MACBETH is spellbinding—if you already know the story and the text. MMNT design elements are haunting, but too often text scansion and intelligibility are lacking,
Macbeth, intrepid thane of Glamis promoted for valor to thane of Cawdor, is seduced by the lure of greatness and power. These are promised to him by the mendacious witches known as the weird sisters and by his lady wife, more avaricious and duplicitous than her soldier husband. Shakespeare's story, one of the infernal vortex and pit of ambition, is well served by the minimalist set design of Theada Haining and by Kathryn Eader's …
Review: Sunny Days by Reina Hardy at The Vortex
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 12, 2024
Reina Hardy's sprawling HAPPY DAYS has a Brechtian approach to evil, to innocent joys, and to magic that is as endangered as we all are.
Sunny Days is virtually all concept -- an awkward multicourse serving of bitter and sweet that's made palatable by Rudy Ramirez's direction, inventive puppetry, and the dedicated cast. I can imagine playwright Reina Hardy at her desk, musing on the sweetness of Sesame Street and brooding on the adult evils that victimize children in this world; she then imagines evoking these opposites by inventing the story of an earnest and eventually successful puppeteer. She emphasizes …
Review: The Three Musketeers by The Archive Theater Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 27, 2024
Archive Theatre's The Three Musketeers is great fun and offers a rollicking, romping, stomping swirl of bravado and romance.
Archive Theatre's The Three Musketeers is a gem within a jewel within a brilliant display case within a treasure cave—and a rollicking, romping, stomping swirl of bravado and romance. Company artistic director and Jill-of-all-trades Jennifer Rose Davis adapted Alexandre Dumas's 1844 adventure novel, produced, directed, led the stitching team that produced the dazzling costumes designed by Cecelia Gay, and even both plays and sings in the small court orchestra accompanying the piece with delicate 17th-century tunes. …