Reviews for Poison Apple Initiative Performances
Review: People Will Talk About You Sometimes by Poison Apple Initiative
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 23, 2014
"And then they'll be sorry. . . ." That's a typical mind game of adolescents hurting from bruised egos and sunk in self pity. It's a no-win game in which they're always victorious. No boundaries; no opposition; and the only players are imaginary others who regret every slight or offense they've ever caused you. Sarah Matusek's script takes the concept seriously. She removes the protagonist entirely and explores the consternation of four persons who knew …
Review: We Were Nothing by Poison Apple Initiative
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 16, 2013
One woman starts to share a secret, then pulls back; they teeter on the edge of something unexperienced and unknown. How much are you willing to reveal to your friend? How much do you need your friend? What is it that you need? Can you put it into words?
You may want to budget some extra time for locating the venue if you don't already know Monstrosity Studio or have an informative friend involved in the Poison Apple Initiative production of We Were Nothing by Will Arbery. I wound up driving through a series of parking lots surrounding rental barracks south of Oltorf, then got warmer when I crossed west across South First. It's been dark for quite a while by 7 p.m. and other than …
Review: Housebreaking by Poison Apple Initiative
by Hannah Bisewski
Published on December 03, 2011
Though the script never moralizes, the meditative tone of the first half fails to meet the promise of the explosive inertia of the first half. Housebreaking sputters to an end with a few quiet revelations.
What does a theatre space feel like? How is it supposed to make us feel? Those of us in the small crowd gathered for the opening of the premiere run of Jakob Holder’s Housebreaking were asking ourselves those questions in some form or other. People from the Poison Apple Initiative funneled us into a cramped living room nook in a discreet East Austin housing venue. We found ourselves in the kitchen of a fairly average but rundown home. …
Review: Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake) by Poison Apple Initiative
by Michael Meigs
Published on December 07, 2010
Each of the three spins gently away into fantasy dialogues with dream figures or surrogates. Only mid-way does the playwright reveal the details of the fatal accident and then start an intrigue ticking.
You know that this single mom and her eleven-year-old daughter are in deep trouble from the very start, because the building tells you so. Michael Slefinger as The Apartment is an engimatic presence, miffed by their inattention, wearing a butterfly bow tie that confirms his nostalgia for long-ago elegance. His is the first voice we hear, and he hovers in this action as something between a Greek chorus and a malevolent haunting. …
Review: No Exit by Poison Apple Initiative
by Michael Meigs
Published on July 05, 2009
Rommel Sulit was syllable-clear throughout, but I foundthat Helyn Rain Messenger and, to a lesser extent, Jen Brown were not inflecting their texts sufficiently to establish beats of action.
With a sort of purposeful negligence, I have long avoided some of the leading French writers of the twentieth century. Existentialism enjoyed a vogue both in literature and in philosophy when I was at university, but I didn't care for its dour aspects. Mine was a deliberately uninformed prejudice, the sort that is likely to perpetuate itself comfortably for a lifetime. Less than a decade after that, we lived for two difficult years in Oran, Algeria, …