Recent Reviews
Review #1 of 2: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH by Zach Theatre
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 29, 2019
A cycle of three songs by Hedwig is a most beautiful battering of the audience’s psyche. It's unmistakably puissant, powerful, and gratifyingly self-indulgent. The story of Hedwig is a modern-day fable that deserves retelling as Zach Theatre has done.
Inside all that fabulousness there is so much pain. During The Long Grift, Hedwig tries and tries to finish the opening when s/he senses a breakdown. S/he throws out some banter and attempts to restart the song, but it is not to be. S/he storms off stage and becomes a quiet rainstorm in the distance. The audience is subdued, but only momentarily, since Leslie McDonel as Yitzhak steps to the microphone and fills the space, …
Review #2 of 2: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 29, 2019
Director Dave Steakey and star Daniel Rowan prove that Hedwig, already larger than life back in 2002, can be scaled up to a needy, appealing, viciously funny and achingly vulnerable monster who towers over Zach Theatre's Karen Kuykendall stage like King Kong in a tanga and high heels.
Hedwig is twenty years older now than when s/he first came out on American stages, but in the magic bubble of theatre s/he hasn't aged a day. Director Dave Steakley put on an Austin version of the 1998 Broadway musical in 2002, at just about the same time the movie version premiered, and it played in the snug Whisenhut theatre in the round for months. In his Austin Chronicle review Wayne Alan Brenner enthused over …
Review #2 of 2: Heartland by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on January 28, 2019
In the tradition of the best modern plays, HEARTLAND also tells several stories at the same time, tracks up-to-the-minute, and shows great heart. This latter quality is sure to make it evergreen.
Heartland, an important new play by Gabriel Jason Dean, is now up at the Vortex. The longish, heavily scripted work takes on geopolitics, especially the alt-tidal forces sweeping back and forth across Afghanistan and the United States. In the tradition of the best modern plays, Heartland also tells several stories at the same time, tracks up-to-the-minute, and shows great heart. This latter quality is sure to make it evergreen, some day to enter the canon. The play is almost all …
Review #1 of 2: Heartland by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 28, 2019
HEARTLAND is so exquisitely written, directed and acted that it's likely to sweep Austin theatre awards. See it, and give in to an evening that will take you out of yourself and into a better place.
Heartland is a small miracle of a play. Playwright Gabriel Jason Dean, aided by director Rudy Ramirez, reconciles the ache of loss by drawing a quiet, warm portrait of a chaste love affair in the impossible circumstances of Afghanistan and evoking those memories for us in the home of an ill and grieving father. They're memories of Getee, a U.S. citizen teacher murdered by the Taliban, and they belong to Nazrullah, a fellow teacher, and to …
Review: Waitress by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 24, 2019
Christine Dwyer, as our titular waitress Jenna, has a goose-bump-inducing voice and an onstage aplomb that was neither over-bearing or restrained. It would be silly to say she stole the show, when she actually WAS the show.
“Sugar. Butter. Flour” These three words begin the show and are a common refrain through out the next two acts. It’s a simple and sweet refrain for a simple but not always sweet story. Our titular waitress learns in the first scene that she is expecting and must quickly re-evaluate her life -- but then again not really, because the truth is she has long known what she wants and, perhaps more tellingly, that what …
Review: The Realness (a break beat play) by New Manifest Theatre Company
by Justin M. West
Published on January 23, 2019
Refreshingly exuberant, THE REALNESS is a solid first outing from the company. A bit rough around the edges, it's passionate, sincere and unafraid. And so are the cast and crew.
The Realness, the inaugural offering from the New Manifest Theatre Company, is something of a mixed bag. In many ways the show succeeds, but it’s hampered by a script from Idris Goodwin that is overtly redolent of the 1990's and painfully light on substance. The Realness follows T.O (Justin Whitener), a college grad from the suburbs for whom a transplant into the big city is a shock to the senses. As a black kid from a …