Recent Reviews
Review: When We Were Young and Unafraid by Filigree Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 15, 2019
Polemical but well crafted, Sarah Treem's script with its strongly contrasted characters, episodic construction and tidy plot is evidence of the playwright's success as a writer for television. Her message is clear.
Go back forty-six years with playwright Sarah Treem and the artists of Filigree Theatre, and you'll find yourself in an eerily different place and time. The unpretentious kitchen Chris Conard has crafted in the compact space of the Mastrogeorge Theatre looks pretty much like what you'd expect to find at a bed and breakfast out on an island close to the border with Canada, but you're seeing through a glass darkly. While St. Paul urged …
Review: Anastasia by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on February 14, 2019
ANASTASIA is a spectacle in more ways than one: background videos, lighting, wildly entertaining choreography, period costume design, and Lila Coogan's lilting and powerful voice.
The Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia was born in June of 1901 and passed away at the young age of 17 in 1918. Or did she? Modern fable, urban myth, or conspiracy theory, call it what you like, but this mystery has gripped many minds for many years. Anastasia was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II. Though he had abdicated the year before, Nicholas and his family were executed by …
Review: Jane Eyre: An Epic Musical Love Story by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 13, 2019
With the musical drama JANE EYRE the Emily Ann Theatre in Wimberley targets and generally achieves a level of sophistication and excellence in musical performance that's rare in community-based theatre. And there's not a bad seat in the house.
Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre has long been beloved. Like Charles Dickens's David Copperfield, it takes a solitary, often teenaged reader back to the dark and unforgiving class structures of England's 19th century. Both novels profile protagonists of humble origin who survive, grow up and eventually achieve their goals thanks to diligence, character, and a touch of good luck. Jane's story, published in 1841, is the darker of the two. Paul Gordon and John Caird's musical drama …
Review: Zvizdal by touring company
by David Glen Robinson
Published on February 12, 2019
One left the theatre emotionally disturbed but understanding clearly how the Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone was transformed into a secret island and enchanted oasis,.
Much like the recent Heartland, the mixed media presentation (video documentary, music, scale modeling, digital compositing) Zvizdal [Chernobyl—So Far So Close] brings huge geopolitical issues home to individuals who are living their lives with the best of intentions. Part of the title refers to the name of the abandoned, wrecked village in the middle of the nuclear exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that exploded and melted down in 1986. Video teams researched and won permission …
Review: Booger Red by Jim Loucks at FronteraFest
by David Glen Robinson
Published on February 03, 2019
Loucks's curated accounts of Southern life keep it personal all the way, with a degree of honesty seldom seen on stage. His memorable characters reside in his body as well as in his voice.
Storytelling is in good hands with Jim Loucks. He is tall, many voiced, and gifted with outgoing generosity and the evident drive to create the finest one-person shows in this generation. Booger Red is another well-appointed household in the village of Loucks’ solo career. Booger Red is the performance tribute to Jim Louck’s father, Booger Red, a dynamic Baptist preacher in the mold of Billy Graham but without the stadium preaching series. As expected, Booger Red definitely lives …
Review: Sweat by Southwest Theatre Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 30, 2019
Americans, even blue-collar workers have always been relatively more mobile than citizens of many other nations, but when the factory closes, your life has been laid down in a deep groove, and your people are around you, what are you going to do?
Southwest Theatre Productions in Austin has staged a dozen contemporary American dramas since its inception in 2015. Maybe you hadn't noticed? The company is itinerant though not homeless, for they're inhabiting a very specific field of the art. SWTP looks for scripts, preferably recent ones, that use realistic styling to examine closely the flaws and frustrations of contemporary society. The company has shown a special sensibility for outsiders, the disadvantaged, people of color, …