Recent Reviews
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, n 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 hom, 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 …
Review: Esperanza by Rupert Reyes, Esperanza Productions, Austin
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 28, 2026
Rupert Reyes's ESPERANZA is sentimental but hums with indignation over males who assume they can exploit women. Karina Dominguez is the vibrant heart of this performance.
Rupert Reyes's script for Esperanza carries all the gentle affection he has always expressed for his community. In my very second Austin theatre review on June 9, 2008, I called his Petra's Sueño "generous-hearted" and his titular character "matter-of-fact, optimistic, and industrious without complaint." Those same qualitites appear in Esperanza, a return venture after he and JoAnn Carreon Reyes retired from theatre work in 2017 and turned over Teatro Vivo to younger hands. It's fitting, …
Review: The Roommate by En Vivo
by Donna Provencher
Published on October 26, 2026
Thoughtful and entertaining, THE ROOMMATE is proof En Vivo understands it's not enough to make art worth seeing. You have to make people want to see it.
En Vivo’s The Roommate demonstrates that great theater can come in small packages. Few theater artists have both the creative vision to produce exceptional work and the business savvy to attract audiences to see it. Paul Padilla, founder and artistic director of En Vivo! Theatrical, has both. His small but ambitious company consistently punches well above its weight class. In large part, that’s because Padilla marries strong artistic choices with smart marketing. The results speak …
Review #3 of 3: The Making of a Great Moment, by Hyde Park Theatre
by Alistair C. Beaumont
Published on October 23, 2026
One can only imagine what philosophically deleterious effects life on the road has on these die-hard thespians. That would be a story indeed!
The Victoria Canada Traveling Bicycle Theatre Company Presents Great Moments in Human Achievement by Alistair C. Beaumont (as recorded by Brian Paul Scipione) Mona Barnes and Terry Dean of the Victoria Canada Traveling Bicycle Theatre Company (VCTBTC) have rolled into Hyde Park Theatre and given a road-weary blowout of a performance that included nearly five hundred of the most important great moments of human achievements in a mere four hours. The actors were, amazingly, not …