Recent Reviews
Review: An Enemy of the People by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 09, 2026
In Ibsen's classic drama, the people turn against the expert who tells them their spa is poisoning people. In Kasey RT Graham's slimmed-down, somewhat regendered script, the student cast is confident in its lines but the tempo is off.
My favorite line in Ibsen's 1882 The Enemy of the People is never spoken in this production. After angry confrontations in a town meeting, a mob chases Dr. Thomas Stockmann through the streets. As Act V begins, we see him collecting rocks that have been thrown through the windows of his home, and Stockmann shows his wife Ingrid that the mob has torn his trousers in the pursuit. She laments that those are his best …
Review: Bisexual Sadness by Jarrott Productions
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 07, 2026
A very contemporary comedy of a woman's conflicting sexual attractions and others' life choices, BISEXUAL SADNESS rises to a plateau of unresolved possibilities. Call it a comdrama and appreciate the characters.
Bisexual Sadness by upcoming playwright India Kotis has opened at Trinity Street Playhouse in downtown Austin, the second-ever production of anew work which may have a bright future. Surely, Jarrott Productions' staging will assist its launch. A one-act about 90 minutes long, Bisexual Sadness is loaded with content about sexuality in its many refractions. Opening night attracted a full house fascinated with the topic. It's a comdrama, a comedy that becomes a drama, in contrast …
Review: Henry 4.1 by Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 07, 2026
Powerfully imagined theatre—the Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project, splitting instead of melding Shakespeare's narrative, surprises and astonishes and satisfies.
Stephanie and Mike Crugnola's Walking Shadow Shakespeare Project (WSSP) has put another of Will's finest histories through the Transmogrifier, once more with exciting results. They don't glue together noted classics as they did with their 2025 Caesar and Anthony and Cleopatra, honored both by the Austin Theatre Critics and the B Iden Payne council. This time they split Henry IV, Part I into three, dubbed it Henry 4.1, and are producing it with a cast …
Review #1 of 2: All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Filigree Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 04, 2026
An unbeatable combination: Filigree Theatre and Arthur Miller. A strong, well selected cast tells the tragedy to perfection.
Filigree Theatre and Arthur Miller are an unbeatable combination. Filigree has opened Miller’s All My Sons at Ground Floor Theatre in east Austin. Filigree is known for precision in its productions, and Miller’s plays are canonical modernist plays of the mid-twentieth century. His plays portray the values, discontents, and tragedies of American life at the time, and, in the case of All My Sons, the immediate post-World-War-II era. Filigree Theatre presents it all to perfection. …
Review #2 of 2: All My Sons by Arthur Miller, Filigree Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 04, 2026
Arthur Miller targets the American Dream and director Elizabeth V. Newman's Filigree Theatre captures it with all the flaws. A fine production.
Arthur Miller's 1947 All My Sons was of its moment although as an American tragedy, it went against the country's vigorous optimism after victory in Word War II. The action takes place three and a half years after the Kellers' older son Larry, a pilot, disappeared on the Pacific front. Soon after that, protagonist Joe Keller's son Chris came home, having survived the massacre of the company he commanded. Kate, his mother, stubbornly refuses to …
Review: The Visit by University of Texas Theatre & Dance
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 02, 2026
Cabaret styling for a large cast in the vastness of UT's unadorned, unmasked B. Iden Payne Theatre is augmented by video for a powerful presentation on revenge, cupidity, and guilt.
Director Sunghyun Lim's ingenious staging of Dürrrenmatt's The Visit seizes upon the intimacy of cabaret styling and contradicts our expectations by visually expanding the story to the entirety of the virtually bare stage of the B. Iden Payne Theatre at UT Austin. Comedy in closeup-late-night-in-your-face-wink/wink style is all the more striking when performed in the vastness of that space. The spare presentation also contrasts with the mostly unseen resources available to bring it onstage: the …