Recent Reviews
Review: To Kill a Mockingbird (Sorkin) by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on May 30, 2023
Aaron Sorkin's adaptation for modern audiences is refreshing, compelling, and a sharp reminder that the controversial issues in Harper Lee's 1960 novel are relevant today.
Having reviewed quite a few new Broadway plays, I have gotten pretty used to seeing that such-and-such a production has won four, five, six, seven, or a gazillion Tony Awards. It is hard to describe my shock that the best Broadway play I have seen in years, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, won only one. I realize that the knee-jerk reaction to this statement will be along the lines that the Antoinette Perry …
Review: Sanctuary City by Ground Floor Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 29, 2023
The SANCTUARY CITY of urban New York is anything but a refuge; playwright Majok portrays a dark world lit only by the tenuous flame of friendship. Her ninety-minute piece grips and provides an unexpected, devastating twist.
Ground Floor Theatre's Sanctuary City plays on a starkly bare stage where the principal set pieces are metal scaffolding units and the principal decoration is a dark urban mural with random tagging. This set could represent anywhere or nowhere. There's a sense of brooding about it. It looks like a prison or a random inhabited space in a wasteland. In a sense, it is both. The lives here are those of "B" and "G," …
Review: Shakespeare's MEASURE FOR MEASURE by Classic Theatre, San Antonio
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 23, 2023
The powerful message from the set and staging of Classic Theatre's MEASURE FOR MEASURE is that of a world of voyeurism, secrets, and ambiguity, particularly sexual ambiguity.
Classic Theatre's Measure for Measure places its audience in a dark, uneasy, and tainted world. Those attending seat themselves in the rows of black chairs flanking the long sides of a rectangular playing space; at the narrow ends of that virtually bare stage television monitors flicker fretfully and insistently. They show images of public spaces, parking garages, and other places that would be monitored by closed circuit television. As the audience gathers, a man seated at …
Review: Kaleidoscope by Ventana Ballet and Austin Camerata
by David Glen Robinson
Published on May 16, 2023
KALEIDOSCOPE: Five not so easy pieces. HAIKU: In a studio / music becomes the dancers / the night tastes it all
Dance in Austin is said to exist in a state of underfunded flux. Some say it is dying out, an artifact of twentieth century fine arts having no claim on the twenty-first. Ventana Ballet says no to all that, producing dance in ballet and contemporary technique and blends of the two. Ballet purists take note; widen your horizons a smidge by giving some creative attention to Ventana Ballet. Ventana’s show Kaleidoscope gives us a powerful, …
Review: The Baker's Wife by Alchemy Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 13, 2023
There's always pain within comedy; in THE BAKER'S WIFE with beautiful performances by Sarah-Marie Curry and Sebastian Vitale pain teaches us something.
There's an achingly beautiful love story at the center of The Baker's Wife. Sebastian Vitale as Aimable Castaignet the baker, newly arrived in the tiny village of Concorde, is quiet, a bit battered, and absolutely devoted to his young wife. Sarah Marie Curry's Geneviève was battered emotionally somewhere else along the way and rescued by the baker, much older; she's withdrawn, correct with him but short-spoken with others in Concorde. Love yearns in both directions …
Review: The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940 by City Theatre Company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on May 10, 2023
A treat for those familiar with 1930's movies, THE MUSICAL COMEDY MURDERS OF 1940 was stuffed with odd characters and over-the-top dialogue. Deft casting rewarded by evoking giggles and guffaws.
The time: December 1940. The city: Chappaqua, New York. The scene: The Library. The characters: Helsa Wenzel, Elsa Von Grossenknueten, Michael Kelly, Patrick O'Reilly, Ken De La Maize, Nikki Crandall, Eddie McCuen, Marjorie Baverstock, Roger Hopewell, and Bernice Roth. Or, put another way, a maid, an eccentric mansion-owner, a cop, a singer, a director, a chorus-girl, a comedian, a Broadway producer, a composer, and a lyricist walk into the room . . . …