Recent Reviews
Review: Dry Land by Permanent Record
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 08, 2017
DRY LAND successfully shows how teenagers may steadfastly refuse to reach out for practical help when life happens. The dialogue and voice work produce a dynamic of high nervous anxiety that never effectively relents.
Permanent Record Theatre company has the look of yet another Austin pop-up theatre group, full of passion, applying immense energy and even greater creative resources to produce plays they love. Their inaugural production, Dry Land by Ruby Rae Spiegel, is now on view at Mastrogeorge Theatre. The play is a postcard to the world from the high school athletics locker room. And it is an SOS. The stage action is all about teenagers helping teenagers …
Review: Apocalypse by Bottle Alley Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 03, 2017
Apocalypse succeeds as an evocation not of the classic notion of apocalypse, the world ending in fire or in ice, but in intimate finales of accumulating inertia and unknowing.
You need ingenuity if you're a small theatre company facing Austin's squeeze of performing space. Equipped spaces are recording reservations well out into 2019. On the other hand, if you're a determined ad hoc band of performers not worried about the inquisition forces of the City of Austin, you can put up your tents virtually anywhere. The world is wide. And if you have no tents either, the woods are lovely, dark and deep. …
Review: The Brothers Size by Capital T Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on October 30, 2017
Playwright McCraney succeeds brilliantly with the poetry and song flowing through his play. It plays as though every spoken phrase is a musical chord, simultaneously touching each of the levels: the gods, the poverty stricken, the slaves, and the mythic figures enact their destinies.
The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney is an evening-length one-act contemporary play, part II of his award-winning Brother/Sister Plays trilogy. Capital T Theatre has scored a major advance in bringing The Brothers Size to Austin with a four star cast of three, directed by Jason Phelps. McCraney has won numerous awards and is currently the playwriting chair at the Yale School of Drama. Additionally, he co-wrote the screenplay for the Academy Award winning …
Review: Little Shop of Horrors by Woodlawn Theatre
by Kurt Gardner
Published on October 20, 2017
The stage musical version of Roger Corman's famously no-budget cult horror comedy is directed by Tim Hedgepeth and makes for a fun Halloween-season treat.
Populated with morbid themes, yet propelled by a bright score courtesy of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, the musical production of Little Shop of Horrors is an intriguing hybrid of darkness and light – like finding an orchid in a landfill. It tells the story of Seymour Krelborn, the hapless employee of a Skid Row flower shop run by the cranky Mr. Mushnik. The store’s only other employee is the pretty but tacky …
Review: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Other Just-So Stories by Magik Theatre
by Kurt Gardner
Published on October 13, 2017
Four talented actors each inhabit several of Kipling’s characters with the aid of evocative costumes designed by Carolyn Dellinger Stillwaggon and stylish headpieces fabricated by Lucian Hernandez.
Adapted from the works of Rudyard Kipling by members of the Chicago-based Lifeline Theatre, Christina Calvit and Meryl Friedman, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Other ‘Just So’ Stories comes to San Antonio’s Magik Theatre in a delightful production that will entertain children and their parents alike. The piece is performed by four talented actors: Jeremy Bilbo, Delvin James, Jovi Lee, and Randee Lutterloh. They each inhabit several of Kipling’s characters with the aid of evocative costumes designed …
Review: Singin' in the Rain by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 07, 2017
Director Reybold, choreographer Kelly and cast give us the familiar with enough innovation to bring it newly alive in Zach Theatre's lavish production.
Singin' in the Rain wasn't particularly innovative when it was first done as a movie vehicle for Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O'Connor, except of course for Kelly's wonderful dance sequence, most of which he improvised on the spot. The film was just the latest product off MGM's Arthur Freed movie musical assembly line, and the screenwriters Comden & Green happily recycled popular songs of Nacio Brown and Freed. It wasn't even particularly …