Review: The Last Match by Filigree Theatre
by Michael Meigs

I think of Elizabeth V. Newman's Filigree Theatre as "bespoke" dramatic art. That British term evolved in the 18th century to describe fine clothing tailored to the individual, using the highest quality materials. Contrast it to the mass-produced garments the rest of us wear. In the theatre world, contrast it to those familiar mass maket titles that keep coming around with touring companies. Or, more recently, Fiddler on the Roof at Austin Opera.

 

 

Quality is assured at Filigree; so is discriminating taste. You're like as not to see unfamiliar faces onstage, talent that Newman has discovered or evoked or enticed in pursuit of her vision. With Anna Ziegler's The Last Match, Filigree Theatre is midway through its seventh season, a fine Tennessee Williams Summer and Smoke behind it and the intriguing promise of Austin actor Kathleen Fletcher's Take Care of My Friend ahead.

 

"Bespoke" theatre is, unfortunately, caviar to the general. Perhaps recognizing this, Newman has used venues that admit of only limited seting. Factory on Fifth accommodated perhaps twenty-five or thirty; the Kid's Acting Studio at The Linc seated about that same number for Summer and Smoke. Because of space restrictions and a striking design, The Last Match at Sterling Stage may accommodate even fewer theatre seekers.

 

Anna Ziegler's clever 2015 play takes place at the U.S. Open tennis competition. It features a ruling (but fading) U.S. male tennis star pitted against the itriving Russian rival who will almost inevitably replace him as #1 seed in world tennis. Each is paired with a significant other, women who must deal with the hot intensity of sports competition while tending the fragile relationship with these obsessed males.

 

 

The novelty of the staging is that it takes place on a tennis court. How does a set designer evoke that? There's subtle overlap here. A theatre is, almost by definition, a sacred space where (paraphrasing Peter Brook) "anything can happen and something MUST happen." So is a tennis court. And the games played out in both spaces speak volumes about human experience and the progress of life.

 

 

The stories grip the audience. U.S. player Tim Cooper (played by Ryan Bradley) is painfuilly aware that his domination cannot last but he's addicted to the game; Sergey Sergeyevitch (Delan Crawford) burns to conquer in a world where he has long felt abandoned. The fights and plights of their women are just as acute. Mallory (Chiara McCarty), a former tennis player, is struggles to have both a child and retain her husband, and Galina (Maddie Scanlan) is the cynic who knows Sergei far better than he knows himself. Set in inevitable conflicts (player vs. player, male vs. female), Ziegler's story explores great depths.

 

But that set . . . the Sterling Stage goes a long way toward defeating Ziegler's ambitious and eloquent play. The building was designed as an event center, not as a stage, and it presents a long, difficult rectangle as a playing space. Patrick Anthony has a shortened tennis court diagonally across the playing space with audience members confined in opposite corners. That's striking -- until you remember that in real life the spectators are elevated above the court so they can observe everything that's going on. Squeezed into the angles, seating for the audience is limited. In frustrating contrast, the the tennis court surface is elevated perhaps eighteen inches but most audience seating is at floor level. A full-scale tennis net crosses that diagonal space. Because most of the blocking is adversarial (across the net), an audience member will often have to lean and peer through net mesh to view whatever is going on on the far side. All too often, the cloth band of the net's upper border masks faces and movements.

 

A compliment accompanied by a complaint: Filigree recruited Kate Glasheen for dialect coaching for Crawford as Segei and Scanlin as Galina, and their Russian-inflected English is totally convincing. However: authenticity is not audibility. Maddie Scanlan projects, emotes, and articulates; Delan Crawford delivers his Russian-accented lines with a fast fluency that often makes them extremely hard to follow, at least by these perhaps sluggish ears of mine. This is offset by the eloquence of his action and attitude, but I wanted to hear and understand more of his harrowing past.

 

Your ears are probably sharper than mine, and you may have more patience with the ducking and weaving occasionally required to access the impressive depths of these performances. Elizabeth Newman's vision may well be sharper than mine -- metaphorically but also, perhaps, literally. And you, if you have a taste for the finer things in the life of the drama, would do well to follow the Filigree Theatre.

 

EXTRA

Click to view the Filigree Theatre program for Anna Ziegler's The Last Match

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The Last Match
by Anna Ziegler
Filigree Theatre

February 6 - 22, 2026

Sterling Stage, Austin