Recent Reviews
Review: The Year of the Rooster by Capital T Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 29, 2015
Playwright Eric Dufault sinks down into the wild dim mind of a bantam rooster bred for combat and hopped up on steroids, enraged and obsessed with the glare of the sun; Jason Liebrecht incarnates the bird with ferocious sinewy movement and stacatto speech.
You generally have a pretty good idea of what you're going to see at a Capital T production at the Hyde Park Theatre. Strong emotion, blighted lives, poverty or else poverty of spirit amidst mindless materialism, misfits in an America-through-the-looking-glass. The Year of the Rooster fits that template and gives you ample reason to shiver and hug yourself and be thankful for what you've got. But -- as so often with Mark Pickell's band of …
Review: Gusev by Breaking String Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 26, 2015
Graham Schmidt's adaptation and staging of Anton Chekhov's very short story 'Gusev' is a dark and haunting hour of theatre in which concept comes close to overwhelming content.
Graham Schmidt's adaptation and staging of Anton Chekhov's very short story Gusev is a dark and haunting hour of theatre in which concept comes close to overwhelming content. Schmidt and talented collaborators take the ten-page story written by Chekhov in 1890 on his voyage back from Sakhalin Island in Russia's far east and endow it with rich layers of detail, remaining generally faithful to the text and sequence of the original. That overlay distracts and …
Review: Tender Rough Rough Tender by Sarah Saltwick, groundswell at the Off Center
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 23, 2015
The actors are intense and spot-on in their characterizations. Joseph Garlock plays Mike with a sweet center appropriate to the character, when he could have played it all muscle. Hannah Burkhauser definitely has a huge emotional range.
The Fourth of July, 2011, in Austin was incredibly hot, fireworks were banned, the Bastrop Lost Pines burned down that summer, and restaurants charged for ice water, but only if patrons requested it. This is the atmosphere of the incredibly hot Tender Rough Rough Tender by Sarah Saltwick, now playing at The Off-Center in east Austin. The sit-com joke of taking cold drinks by throwing them in one’s own face rather than swallowing them is …
Review: The Tree Play by Robi Polgar
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 12, 2015
A new work in the form of a stage ritual and composite documentary on rain forest and habitat destruction, Robi Polgar's THE TREE PLAY is an artful continuation of consciousness raising in Austin and the world.
The ambitious Austin-grown theatre show The Tree Play is just finishing up its premiere run at the new Ground Floor Theatre on the east side. It's a new work in the form of a stage ritual and composite documentary on rain forest and habitat destruction around the world. Robi Polgar authored the script that ties the diverse elements together in a clear narrative thread. The play is an artful continuation of consciousness raising in Austin …
Review: Love! Valour! Compassion! by City Theatre Company
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 10, 2015
All these characters have immense heart, even if some are less revealing than others; this quality makes this play a mighty work that speaks to the human condition to a degree perhaps greater than any other play of the last twenty years.
City Theatre has, once again, proved itself a leader on the Austin east side theatre scene. Love! Valour! Compassion!, is a production second to none -- Off-Broadway or anywhere where. Expectations in the Austin theatre community for Terence McNally’s play were sky-high. It won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1995 and other awards, and City Theatre has made itself a reputation of including bold and meaningful modern dramas in its agreeably diverse programing. …
Review: Tartuffe by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 02, 2015
The all-teenage cast is fearless, they know their lines, they’re clear even when shouting, they dance sharply and well, and thus armed they dive straight into the world’s foremost play about hypocrisy and deception.
We’ve entered Austin’s hot summer of theatre. Get involved, there’s Zach Theatre’s Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies, the experimental and satisfying MAST at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, three musicals by Summer Stock Austin at the Long Center, Hairspray at Zilker Hillside Theatre, Terence McNally’s Love! Valour! Compassion! at City Theatre, 7 Towers’ Closer at the Dougherty Arts Center, and the new original The Tree Play by old Austin hand Robi Polgar coming soon to Ground Floor Theatre. …