Recent Reviews
Review: Terminus by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 27, 2016
Everything comes together magnificently in Gabriel Jason Dean's Terminus, and director Rudy Ramirez, wizard-like, summons the arts and crafts to make it live.
Everything comes together magnificently in Gabriel Jason Dean's Terminus to bring you to another place, another time and a situation as fraught, intense and haunting as those of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. The playwrght's dialogue is clever, sharp and memorable, and he has carpentered a framework and plot of great satisfactions. Director Rudy Ramirez, wizard-like, has summoned forth all the needed arts and crafts to make it live. Eller Freeman lives with her grandson Jaybo …
Review: Denim Doves by Adrienne Dawes at Salvage Vanguard Theater, January 22 - February 13, 2016
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 23, 2016
The girl gang does almost the whole thing as a silly romp worthy of an unsupervised sleepover of 13-year-olds.
I can't hide it: I'm a card-carrying member of the patriarchy. More than 40 years into a marriage of depth and trust, father of a fiercely independent, talented and successful daughter. And a son. So while I agree that women got a right to have fun, I'm just not the intended audience for Adrienne Dawes' Denim Doves. She's working on a transcendent theme -- the subjugation of women both to their biology and to those, …
Brevity Is The Soul of Sh*t: Brian Paul Scipione Questions Rev. Michael Ironside, Creator of Sh*t-Faced Shakespeare (in Austin from January 22, 2016)
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 21, 2016
Why here for the next step of a stage run that begins London, Edinburgh, Brighton, Boston. . . Austin?
Rev. Lewis Ironside, I would like to start by thanking you for taking the time to talk with us today. I have to say there is a bit of cautious anticipation being built up about the debut of your production Sh*t-faced Shakespeare this weekend at the Spider House Ballroom but the first question is why here as the next step of a run that begins London, Edinburgh, Brighton, Boston… Austin? We first took the show …
Review: And Still The Dead Lay Moaning by Anthony Bromberg, FronteraFest at Santa Cruz Studio Theatre, January 19 - 30, 2016
by David Glen Robinson
Published on January 20, 2016
The show felt long and slow-paced but even so a satisfying and appropriate work of festival theatre.
We knew where this one was going from the title. The writing challenge for Bromberg, a local talent, was to create a deepening mystery on the cause of death of the title character. Was it murder from a terrorist attack, a suicide, advanced cancer or something else? All these options were floated sequentially as the play progressed. It all deepened and unraveled, and resolution came much later with a fair amount of surprise despite the …
Review: Liberté, Égalité, Adoptée by Maggie Gallant, FronteraFest at The Back Pack, January 19 - 31, 2016
by David Glen Robinson
Published on January 20, 2016
Maggie Gallant's true courage in this first-person show is awe-inspiring.
The true courage of any one-person show performer is awe-inspiring. To pull it all off successfully in performance doubles the kudos thrown to the performer. Maggie Gallant runs the table in her Liberté, Egalité Adoptée, showing at various times through January 31st at Ground Floor Theatre in east Austin as part of the Fronterafest Long Fringe festival. This show compares favorably to last fall’s Naked as a Gaybird, Jay Byrd’s skilled and well-received one-man show …
Review: Disgraced by Ayad Akhtar, Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 20, 2016
Powerful but subtle J. Ben Wolfe as Amir Is almost a tragic hero, but playwright Akhtar implies that Amir's an ugly template for Muslims.
J. Ben Wolfe is a powerful but subtle actor, and that's just what's required in Ayad Akhtar's brooding drama Disgraced. This ninety-minute one-act in four scenes delves deep into the psyche of Amir, the protagonist, who's a tense, talented and aspiring attorney in a New York law firm specializing in big-money litigation. Amir is handling big issues, both at work and in his personal life. His family immigrated from Pakistan when he was eight years …