Reviews for The Baron's Men Performances
Review: Richard III by Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 19, 2016
Andy Bond's casual mastery of Shakespearian verse is a treat. His delivery as Richard III is strikingly low key and has the charm of apparent spontaneity.
The Baron's Men company in Austin got started as a lark in 1997, when a group of friends inspired by the Society for Creative Anachronism put together a twenty-minute version of Henry V. They went on to perform occasional Shakespeare on portable platforms until in 2005 tech magnate Richard Garriot offered to put up an Elizabethan-style stage on his waterfront property. He was serious about it. Construction was sturdy, and capacity of the two covered …
Review: Much Ado About Nothing by Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 05, 2015
In this sprightly production the transformation of the sullen Don John into Dona Giovanna (Leanne Holmquist) is deft, apt, clear and powerful.
"Twenty-one productions in thirteen years!" director Monette Mueller informed opening-night spectators gathered before the torch-lit boards of the Curtain Theatre. The Baron's Men first performed in October, 2002 on a makeshift stage erected that very day. Their patron Richard Garriott later had a tidy Elizabethan-style stage erected for them on the north bank of the Colorado River, just west of the 360 bridge, and they've explored Shakespeare and other authors of early modern drama in …
Review: Lysistrata by The Baron's Men
by David Glen Robinson
Published on July 13, 2014
Aristophane’s Lysistrata is the world’s first anti-war play, and it is not produced often enough in the modern world for us to learn its lessons. It is also a play about love, with a lot of kissing, hugging, nuzzling, and feeding each other grapes. This is somewhat ccounter to its theme, but, eh, the play has its complexities. The Baron’s Men give it a lusty go at Richard Garriott’s The Curtain Theatre in far west …
Review: Romeo and Juliet by The Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 20, 2014
Romeo and Juliet is probably the first work of Shakespeare that most of us encounter, and sometimes it's the only one. That story of two star-crossed lovers is the most likely opportunity to interest distracted adolescents in the work of the 'Bard.' Pedagogically it's pretty effective: Two impetuous and self-centered teenagers flout convention and through a series of mishaps and misapprehensions end their lives in a creepy crypt, desperately disappointed. What's not to like, kids? …
Review: Romeo and Juliet by The Baron's Men
by Casey Weed
Published on April 06, 2014
The Baron's Men finally put up Romeo and Juliet and I was in the rare position last evening of being in the audience with no other stake in the show than simply hoping for an entertaining performance. I was rewarded with much more than that. So often in Austin we're subjected to fussified Shakespeare tarted up with gimmick props and political or social agendas that cloud up the plot and characters and make the pure …
Review: The Spanish Tragedie by Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 20, 2013
The murder is only the principal plot line. Other plots, murders and counter-murders keep things hopping, all the while apparently escaping the attention of the jolly Spanish king and his counterpart the comically neurotic Portuguese viceroy.
Villainy was afoot and revenge was hot at the tidy Elizabethan-style Curtain Theatre on opening weekend, but Karen insisted that I bundle up as if I was going hiking in the winter mountains. And she was right; the temp must have sunk to around 50 F. by the time C. Robert Stevens as Hieronimo had coaxed the malefactors at the Spanish court into the play-within-a-play that's the climax of The Spanish Tragedie. This costume drama …