Recent Reviews
Review: Twelfth Night, or What You Will by The Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 20, 2023
Austin's Baron's Men is a Big Deal, and so is this TWELFTH NIGHT of comedy and courting we won't soon forget.
For those of you who weren't aware of it, the Baron's Men (BM) is a Big Deal and their Twelfth Night, winding up a three-week run at the Elizabeth-style outdoor stage The Curtain Theatre, is an equally big deal. Twenty-four years ago, enthusiasts associated with the video gaming industry grabbed the opportunity to occupy Richard Garriott's folly, a quarter-size replica of a sixteenth-century London theatre on the north bank of the Colorado just west of …
Review: Frankenstein (adapted by Nick Dear) by Gaslight Baker Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 18, 2023
Nick Dear tells the creature's story and the Gaslight Baker Theatre presents it with astonishing physicality and amazingly vivid projected detail.
The towering wall and platforms beyond the Gaslight Baker stage are swathed in white. When you settle into the already chilled audience space, you have the impression that you've been transported to the Arctic. That red, red sun in the distance is the only dim hint of possible warmth. A muted, percussive soundtrack seems to emanate from it as if from a celestial speaker. CTXLT reviews live narrative theatre -- stories told in words. …
Review: The Norwegians by C. Denby Swanson at Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 04, 2023
The greatest pleasures in this staging of THE NORWEGIANS are the Sarahs: Zeringue and Fleming Walker, acting out in the crossed cultures of Texas and Minnesota.
What better way to escape Austin's endless summer than to go to Minnesota? Austin Playhouse's The Norwegians by C. Denby Swanson has got just the antidote for you, a funny, quirky, cross-cultural, character-based comedy. This odd little piece ran off-off-Broadway for more than a year. I first saw it in 2014 at Southwestern University, where the playwright was on staff. Austin Playhouse presented it in 2015. According to Michael Barnes's profile in the Austin Statesman, Swanson …
Review: The Girl who Became Legend by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 30, 2023
Leaving dusty Dustbin in search of rainclouds, "Raina" (get it?) meets legends on her quest. This colorful, imaginative staging of Sarah Saltwick's play charms, surprises, and educates.
The form is familiar—this is a "quest" story in which the protagonist leaves home to wander through the unknown "beyond" to experience a series of encounters and adventures but eventually returns home wiser and accepted by former adversaries and critics. Sarah Saltwick's first modification is evident in the title, for the questor is female, an earnest, sweet, booted young teen. "Raina" -- that's a tell! -- lives with her mother in Dustbin, a huddle of …
Announcement: CTXLT Graphics Crash by Central Texas Live Theatre (CTXLT)
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 28, 2023
Equipment failure on September 27 damaged or destroyed all graphics posted at CTXLT since August 22, 2022.
Apologies to all Central Texas theatre companies and artists and to all readers of CTXLiveTheatre.com -- on September 27, 2023, equipment failed at our internet hosting company and damaged or destroyed all graphics files posted since August 22, 2022. All postings -- reviews, audition notices, arts news, and performance information -- were affected. Text was unaffected, so on any post made over the past thirteen months the graphics have disappeared. They've been replaced by blank …
Review: KOMOREBI by Navaji David Nava and Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 27, 2023
Influenced by many world traditions, Navaji David Nava's KOMOREBI dances were intensely beautiful, stamping us with the expansiveness of the brilliant choreographer's spiritual journey.
Ventana Ballet is one of those new advanced ballet companies in our dance-rich town. Along with PerformaDance and Ballet Austin, it pushes the envelope of dance and the meaning of ballet for the fine arts. They try new forms and ideas, unrestrained by the ballet canon. Rarely do they wear toe shoes onstage. At the same time, they insist that what they create is ballet, nothing less, nothing more. Their own acceptance of that seeming contradiction …