Recent Reviews
Review: Love/Sick by John Cariani, done by Diane Irwin and friends, January 24 - 31, 2016
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 30, 2016
This gang of friends, of an age keenly exposed to the sweet dangers of sentiment, presents these nuggets clearly and convincingly with a minimum of props in a chill last-minute venue.
Playwright John Cariani's gift is his ability to sketch in whimsical lines of ever so lightly ironic dialogue the longings and disappointments of the human heart. In Love/Sick, currently premiering in Austin as part of the displaced FronteraFest Long Fringe, Cariani uses exactly the same theatrical format as his wildly successful Almost, Maine in 2004 --a succession of short scenes performed by different pairs of actors, each turning on a quirk or surprise that spotlights …
Review: The Boys Next Door by City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 29, 2016
We in the audience leave the City Theatre somewhat lightened and enlightened by the chuckles of our evening with the boys next door.
Tom Griffith's 1986 comedy The Boys Next Door is a classic -- a light classic, granted, somewhat more like the fare featured at Houston's KUHA than that at Austin's generally more brainy KMFA. This adroitly scripted tale of a group home for four variously mentally handicapped men is a staple of community theatres (3500 productions so far and counting) but unlike other similarly popular works of light stage comedy, it hasn't been turned into a …
Review: Terminus by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 27, 2016
Everything comes together magnificently in Gabriel Jason Dean's Terminus, and director Rudy Ramirez, wizard-like, summons the arts and crafts to make it live.
Everything comes together magnificently in Gabriel Jason Dean's Terminus to bring you to another place, another time and a situation as fraught, intense and haunting as those of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. The playwrght's dialogue is clever, sharp and memorable, and he has carpentered a framework and plot of great satisfactions. Director Rudy Ramirez, wizard-like, has summoned forth all the needed arts and crafts to make it live. Eller Freeman lives with her grandson Jaybo …
Review: Denim Doves by Adrienne Dawes at Salvage Vanguard Theater, January 22 - February 13, 2016
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 23, 2016
The girl gang does almost the whole thing as a silly romp worthy of an unsupervised sleepover of 13-year-olds.
I can't hide it: I'm a card-carrying member of the patriarchy. More than 40 years into a marriage of depth and trust, father of a fiercely independent, talented and successful daughter. And a son. So while I agree that women got a right to have fun, I'm just not the intended audience for Adrienne Dawes' Denim Doves. She's working on a transcendent theme -- the subjugation of women both to their biology and to those, …
Brevity Is The Soul of Sh*t: Brian Paul Scipione Questions Rev. Michael Ironside, Creator of Sh*t-Faced Shakespeare (in Austin from January 22, 2016)
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 21, 2016
Why here for the next step of a stage run that begins London, Edinburgh, Brighton, Boston. . . Austin?
Rev. Lewis Ironside, I would like to start by thanking you for taking the time to talk with us today. I have to say there is a bit of cautious anticipation being built up about the debut of your production Sh*t-faced Shakespeare this weekend at the Spider House Ballroom but the first question is why here as the next step of a run that begins London, Edinburgh, Brighton, Boston… Austin? We first took the show to …
Review: And Still The Dead Lay Moaning by Anthony Bromberg, FronteraFest at Santa Cruz Studio Theatre, January 19 - 30, 2016
by David Glen Robinson
Published on January 20, 2016
The show felt long and slow-paced but even so a satisfying and appropriate work of festival theatre.
We knew where this one was going from the title. The writing challenge for Bromberg, a local talent, was to create a deepening mystery on the cause of death of the title character. Was it murder from a terrorist attack, a suicide, advanced cancer or something else? All these options were floated sequentially as the play progressed. It all deepened and unraveled, and resolution came much later with a fair amount of surprise despite the obvious outcome. …