Recent Reviews
Review: The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity by Zach Theatre
by Justin M. West
Published on October 19, 2022
Everything in Zach Theatre's THE ELABORATE ENTRANCE OF CHAD DEITY works to perfection. This uproariously hilarious participatory experience is a satire that's not afraid to sink its teeth in. Buy tickets. Now. Only one weekend left!
Ed. note: CTXLT colleague Justin M. West suffered a near knockout from the 'rona but made his way to a keyboard to deliver this review. He regrets the delay. The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity is scheduled to run through October 23, 2022. If you’re the type to skim or just read the first bit of a review to get the gist, this is for you: Stop reading. Buy tickets. Go see this show. Don’t …
Review: A Beautiful Day in November on the Greatest of the Great Lakes by The Public Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 18, 2022
The recipe for A Beautiful Day [. . .] is a big helping of sentimentality, a hefty dose of satire, a touch of disdain, celebration in quantity, and, at the very end, the full contents of a vial of dark, glistening hemlock.
San Antonio's Public Theatre has put up cast headshots and bios for Kate Benson's 2015 A Beautiful Day in November on the Greatest of the Great Lakes, but this is the only onstage image published so far—a cast photo, everyone in character and costumed. Benson provides a vigorous depiction of the familiar confusion of a gathering for the sacred family holiday of Thanksgiving. This static, expectant image looks like many a holiday photo, a souvenir …
Review: Maria & the Mouse Deer by Ballet Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on October 17, 2022
The music and tales so generously danced in MARIA AND THE MOUSE DEER by Alexa Capareda served Austin Ballet II's goal of bringing new source material to contemporary ballet. The work sets a high standard for others to come.
Maria and the Mouse Deer by choreographer Alexa Capareda, a Ballet Austin II production, had its world premiere at Austin Ventures Studio Theater on October 15, 2022. The youth ballet is the first outing in the series Fables of the World. The company plans to create new youth ballets every two years and tour them widely. This piece is another entry into the world of nu ballet, a movement that seeks to change in the …
Review #2 of 2: The Outsider by Beyond August Productions
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on October 14, 2022
With THE OUTSIDER, Beyond August Productions delivers the goods. The laughter begins as soon as action begins and continues through the final curtain call.
The program states: “Time: The Present. Place: The Governor’s Office in a Small State.” And so begins the new play by Paul Slade Smith, an actor and writer from Brooklyn. His play Unnecessary Farce was a runaway international hit with productions in eight different countries. His 2015 work The Outsider has racked up thirty-four productions in 2022 alone. This play has been described as “razor-sharp satire” and a “madcap political farce.” The elevator pitch calls …
Review #2 of 2: The Pact by Jarrott Productions
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on October 14, 2022
It's easy to imagine a continuation of THE PACT in which these characters go on forever jabbing, sneering, and sniping at each other, all the while with love in their hearts.
Jarrott Productions describes The Pact by Austin playwright Max Langert, as “a play about family, pizza, climate change, dating apps, and fringe religious sects...in that order!” Put this way, it sure sounds like a zany farce, and in truth, it is that. However, it manages to be so much more, due to the fact that all of the characters are delightfully three-dimensional. This evening of theatre feels like the pilot of runaway hit television series. …
Review #1 of 2: The Outsider by Beyond August Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 13, 2022
Smith's comedy on the politics of image was fun in 2015. It's still full of zing, especially with Michael Stuart, but in today's troubles the message is bittersweet.
A double irony attends Beyond August Productions' staging of The Outsider. The titular character, Ned Newley, is not an outsider at all. He's the lieutenant governor of a small, unidentified, perhaps New England state. Ned is far and away the smartest man in the room, but he didn't get that position through the exertions of politics. He was drafted as a presumptive non-entity, the state treasurer, strangled with shyness and practically invisible to the public …