Recent Reviews
Review: 'Night, Mother by Alchemy Theatre Company, Austin
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 19, 2025
Rich in emotion and ultimately heart-rending, Alchemy Theatre's 'NIGHT, MOTHER is far more than a message play. It examines reasons to live and reasons to leave this existence.
I can't go on. I won't go on. Spoken out against difficulty and pain and the enigma of Why must I be here?, those statements convey entirely different messages. I can't is a wearied cry against a life perceived as meaningless, a collapsing into inertia. I won't is defiance and determination to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them. The theme is as ancient as literature. Socrates and hemlock; Hamlet …
Review: SPEAK NO MORE: CONTAGION by La Fenice
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on October 18, 2025
Definitely an enjoyable night of theater, like watching a rock and roll concert in a foreign language: visceral, experiential, and utterly incoherent.
La Fenice (Italian for The Phoenix) was originally founded in 1999 as the Austin Commedia Society. They are a modern commedia dell'arte troupe based on Italian theatrical convention that originated more than five hundred years ago. Commedia dell'arte (roughly, comedy of professional artists) is known for combing scripted and improvised elements, physical comedy, stock scenarios, and archetypical or even stereotypical characters. It was often done with satirical intent, most often taking aim at class hierarchy. …
Review: Kimberly Akimbo by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on October 09, 2025
In the title role as Kimberly, Ann Morrison Morrison, is a chameleon entertaining enough to do this production alone, but when you add in the incredible supporting cast, the resulting sum is much greater than its parts.
There are thousands of ways to tell a story and quite often the telling of the story is the story itself. Writers rely on old tropes like en media res, the hero cycle, or nonlinear narratives to tell a classic story in a new way. Sometimes this adds an extra dimension to the tale (e.g., Memento, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind), but often the storytelling style dominates the subject’s substance (looking at you ,Quentin …
Review: Much Ado About Nothing by The Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 06, 2025
Nothing daunted, the Baron's Men celebrate a MUCH ADO in fine style and without regret. Witty battles between Beatrice and Benedict promise that all will turn out well in the end.
No signs of woe were evident October 2 at the final production of the Baron's Men in the Elizabethan-style Curtain Theatre, their riverside home. The house was full and so were the benches for groundlings; artistic director Lindsay Palilnsky mixed with visiting high school students, jauntily chaired them in a Benedict vs. Beatrice competition onstage, and welcomed everyone to the company's now familiar semblance of classic dramatic art of the turn of the sixteenth century …
Review: Summer and Smoke by Filigree Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on October 03, 2025
Filigree Theatre director Elizabeth V. Newman and cast render Tennessee Williams's meditation on fragility, virtue, and the heart both vividly and subtly. Stifled passion, remarkable characters; stirring and disturbing even now, 76 years after its debut.
Matters of the physical heart and the emotional heart—Tennessee Williams conflates them and then parses them out on the way to his love song to humanity, Summer and Smoke. Welcome to the first offering in Filigree Theatre’s seventh season. Like last year’s Suddenly Last Summer, director Elizabeth V. Newman and Filigree Theatre Tennessee Williams with great respect and crystalline clarity. Anyone who has seen or read even one of Wiliams’ plays knows that Summer and …
Review: ALLUVIUS by Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 27, 2025
Ventana Ballet's ALLUVIUS tears a rip in the envelope of contemporary ballet and floats through to the outer darkness of artistic innovation.
Ventana Ballet escaped its own bubble, tore a rip in the envelope of contemporary ballet, and floated through to the outer darkness of artistic innovation, darker than the lighting design and set of their current show, ALLUVIUS. Co-choreographers AJ Garcia-Rameau and Ty Graynor sought the liberation of dancing to unconventional (popular) music, and they achieved it in this show with 90s and early 2000s music, pieces from Metallica, Korn, TOOL, Disturbed, and others. Not that …