Recent Reviews
Review: A Shadow Among Strangers by University of Texas Theatre & Dance
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 18, 2016
Lucien Douglas could have captivated us even if he'd performed this piece out at the intersection of San Jacinto and 23rd Street. Razzle-dazzle em -- and let 'em know they've been razzle-dazzled.
Sometimes you just have to show them how it's done. Lucien Douglas, professor of theatre at the University of Texas at Austin, has received plenty of acclaim: the College of Fine Arts award for excellence in teaching in 2012 and the UT Systems Regents' award for the same in 2014. His list of acting credits and theatre accomplishments, summarized in the program leaflet and on-line, would probably be as long as …
Review: Songs for a New World by Oh Dragon Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 15, 2016
Sixteen glittering stories on a twisting and twirling arc are a bit disorienting, but this voyage into the uncertainties of life offers rewards and serendipity throughout the evening.
Oh Dragon Theatre took me by surprise with Jason Robert Brown's Songs for a New World. As a reviewer at CTX Live Theatre, I'm dedicated to the CTXLT principle of viewing and reviewing live narrative theatre produced in Central Texas -- with 'narrative theatre' specifically defined as "the presentation of a story via the interpretation of a set text." This evening is a lively presentation of Brown's first stage work, …
Review: The Merry Wives of Windsor by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 14, 2016
Susan Gaye Todd's staging of Shakespeare's THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR was a gem in a jewel box, a cleverly ironic cross-gendering of a middling Shakespeare comedy that gave it joy and bite.
Susan Gaye Todd's staging of The Merry Wives of Windsor was a gem in a jewel box. For the last couple of years Todd has directed the theatre programs at the Scottish Rite Theatre (SRT) in downtown Austin, housed in a 19th century building just south of the University of Texas. The SRT has long played to audiences of children and parents, and Todd has continued that tradition with something of a quirky international flair …
Review: The Totalitarians by Theatre en Bloc
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 12, 2016
Barbara Chisholm performs a great and memorable role as the driving, power-grabbing, darkly inflected, ultimately daffy Penelope. She shares herself with an immense radiant energy.
Comedies about tragedies have extra bite. Schadenfreude wells up from within the audience and pours out on the hapless, ridiculous characters on stage. In The Totalitarians by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, the laughter is giggly, a little embarrassed, and masked until the second act when audience members yield to their impulses and fall into unabashed guffaws and cheering. After that they see what a tragedy is unfolding before them. Perhaps a few think back to an earlier throwaway line …
Review: Atlantis, A Puppet Opera by Chad Salvata, Directed for Ethos by Bonnie Cullum, September 3 - 24, 2016 at the Vortex
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 08, 2016
Ethos and Vortex Repertory Theatre have never missed a beat in their dance along the high road of fantastic myth and over the bridge to theatrical reality. ATLANTIS: A PUPPET OPERA is a must-see. You may want to see it twice. It's that good.
Atlantis: A Puppet Opera is without doubt the best musical theatre, or opera, or cyber-opera currently playing in Austin. Now is not the time to quibble over genres. Now is the time to throw down everything and rush to the Vortex to buy tickets, or online if you’re not afraid of being hacked. Ethos, embodied by Chad Salvata, the writer, composer and production designer of Atlantis: A Puppet Opera, specializes in original high fantasies …
Review: Orphans by Street Corner Arts
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 27, 2016
ORPHANS presents a Peter Pan/Neverland scenario of amoral feral children for whom Michael Stuart turns up as sage con man and, in effect, a guiding guardian angel.
Aaron Johnson, co-producer and cast member, told Alex Garza during a CTX Live Theatre interview that he's been carrying around Lyle Kessler's 1983 drama Orphans since his freshman year in college. Street Corner Arts' new Sidewalk Series of semi-sponsored work has given him the opportunity to put it on stage. Or, rather, into one side of the Back Pack improv troupe's well hidden rehearsal space in east Austin. To find it, you need to …