Recent Reviews
Review: Jacob's Ladder by Theatre en Bloc
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 04, 2015
If you can pull back from that disturbing central theme you can enjoy solidly entertaining characters, the accomplished actors who inhabit them and the enchanting visual design of Jacob's Ladder.
Blake Addyson's sound design for Jacob's Ladder uses big band dance music to paint the sound picture of the wartime home front in 1944. Those Glenn Miller recordings are a fine sound hook for the audience. But while reflecting on this new play by Dennis Bailey and David Mixner, I happened to hear some Sinatra recordings from that period. Perhaps the cheerful romanticism of Sinatra's early vocal work would have corresponded a bit better to …
Review: 1000 Forest Gorillas in Kansas by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 02, 2015
They're a striking pair from the first moment they appear: Natalie George the sturdy, graceful caramel blonde and slim, quick Heloise Gold, a head shorter and a number of years more senior.
This short evening with Heloise Gold and Natalie George was an Easter egg basket of surprises. You'd hardly have expected less, given advance word that these two clever collaborators holed up in Kansas for four days with former Austinites Josh Meyer and Matt Hislope of the Rubber Repertory. Unpredictable and sometimes puzzling, the scenes that popped out of those notional Easter eggs may or may not have constituted an explicit story but they were tied …
Review: Charley's Aunt by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 31, 2015
Farces about courting and deception have a fine long history, for what's more amusing that the earnest efforts of the young to wriggle around the constraining conventions of society?
Norman Blumensaadt, artistic director of Different Stages, has over the past 34 years provided a continuing anthology of the theatre, the living equivalent of that imposing row of books in public libraries, The Best Plays of [year]. The series on American dramas ran from the 1930's to 1993 as founding editor John Gasner was replaced by Clive Barnes. Blumensaadt's reach is wider and, if anything, more determined. The Different Stages programs list them all, providing …
Review: The Last Five Years, by Penfold Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on March 29, 2015
David Gallagher’s songs drew applause while Burke’s songs, presented superbly, stimulated thoughtful reflection. But Burke brought down the house in one line in a song declaiming the woes of auditioners.
The Last Five Years is the story of a relationship that proceeds through attraction, dating, marriage and beyond, all in the span of less than two hours in stage time and five years in narrative time. The elapsed time is unimportant to the relationship and the production. The show seems like about thirty minutes and gone too soon. Attribute this to the deft and efficient direction of Michael McKelvey, surefooted and fresh from numerous successes …
Review: The Christians by Lucas Hnath, Hyde Park Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 10, 2015
Christ is pretty much absent from 'The Christians.' One might imagine Him lingering behind the red-robed choir, listening attentively as He certainly has to Christianity's many controversies.
Most of us in Austin are Christians the way the French are Catholics: not at all. Oh, we're decent folks with generally Judaeo-Christian values, most of us. 'Do unto others' and all that. But in terms of faith? You mean, like, believing those tales in the Testaments Old and New? Those are values to be gently but firmly force-fed to children. For their own good, of course. So they can go through the hard process …
The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard, Austin Shakespeare
by Michael Meigs
Published on March 07, 2015
Stoppard's 'Invention of Love' is a deliciously erudite confection, a tour de force in the literal sense that simply outruns the cultural reach of almost everyone in the audience.
A script and production can be, unfortunately, too intelligent. Live theatre is both a private and public art. Producer, director, cast and associates steep themselves in a script with the earnest desire to understand the author's intent, references and milieu, in order to deliver those as clearly and vividly as possible to an audience they already possess or hope to attract. Stoppard's The Invention of Love is a deliciously erudite confection, a tour de force …