Recent Reviews
Review: These Shining Lives by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 15, 2022
Director Lara Toner and the Mary Moody Northen Theatre deliver a sincere, open-hearted performance of a script that concentrates exclusively upon harm caused initially by ignorance and subsequently by willful ignorance.
At the heart of These Shining Lives are the remarkable matched performances of Sonia Mariah Fonseca and Christina Hollie as young industrial workers painting luminiscent numbers onto clockfaces at the Radium Dial Company in the 1920's and 1930's. Lara Toner's choice in casting and directing them was perceptive. Her direction brings them gradually together, a melding of opposites. Fonseca—petite, initially timid, and vulnerable—is Catherine, the lead, with a heartbreaking story arc. A young mother of …
Review #2 of 2: CHICAGO by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 13, 2022
The touring production doesn't attempt to redefine CHICAGO; it does an amazing job of capturing the original spirit of the show: a celebration of life while on death row. A very welcome message at this time.
All the songs are fever dreams of the incarcerated. The set is an homage to the Duke Ellington Band’s scaffolded-style stage. The spotlights dance about like police search lights. The dancing is joyous, raw, animalistic—pure visceral sensuality and unbridled passion. If “writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” then the choreography speaks in sublime sentences that form poetic paragraphs . The music slinks like Eliot’s scampering marmoset. The show elevates the timeless romanticism of …
Review: The Barber of Seville by Austin Opera
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 08, 2022
Austin Opera's staging of THE BARBER OF SEVILLE is thoroughly entertaining. You could even turn off the sound and have a good time (but don't do that—you'll miss some of today's most dazzling vocal performers!).
Rossini's The Barber of Seville is—and except for its 1816 opening night, always has been—great fun. Classic comic types are here, familiar from a tradition stretching to the present from early Roman comedies and the commedia dell'arte: a yearning ingénue (the soprano) about to be married off to an unsuitable suitor (a bass); the clever, handsome young man courting her in disguise (a tenor) with the help of a comic trickster (a baritone). Librettist Cesare …
Review #1 of 2: CHICAGO by 2022 touring company
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 03, 2022
Chicago's message: Life is a vaudeville, old chum. Come to the vaudeville!
Why should one bother to see yet another production of Chicago? The musical debuted nearly fifty years ago, in 1975; the film came out in 2002; and the work long ago proliferated among regional, community, educational, and even kiddie theatre companies. CTXLiveTheatre records ten productions of Chicago across the region, including a 2013 national tour, versions by Austin Playhouse, the Georgetown Palace, San Antonio's NESA high school arts program, and even a 2016 staging by …
Review: Blue Man Group by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 02, 2022
The Blue Man Group disguises low art as high art for an adoring public. Still, with the vast improvement and innovations in technology in the last thirty years, the ‘toys’ now available to them have a lot more potential.
Whenever possible, I like to go to any and every live production cold. No foreknowledge whatsoever. Of course, this is sometimes difficult with extremely popular works and often impossible if it’s a classic. Now, I wasn’t particularly worried about spoilers when it came to the Blue Man Group, but all I really knew about it was that there would be Blue Men and lots of drumming. I also assumed there would be a lot of …
Review: Hedda Gabler by Silent House Theatre (SH), Waco
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 22, 2022
Silent House Theatre's impressive 21st-century take on HEDDA GABLER demonstrates both their dedication to theatre art and the ample talents they bring to it.
Ibsen's Hedda Gabler appeals to ambitious young theatre companies. Silent House (SH) Theatre in Waco just opened its second season with Hedda, almost exactly a year after the Broke Thespians in San Marcos did the same. The work has a relatively small cast and a single living-room set, and Ibsen created several characters of memorable depth, in addition to the titular Hedda, daughter of the late General Gabler. No less an authority than Wikipedia notes …