Recent Reviews
Review: From the Pig Pile: the Requisite Gesture(s) of Narrow Approach by Salvage Vanguard Theater
by David Glen Robinson
Published on April 26, 2014
From the Pig Pile: the Requisite Gesture(s) of Narrow Approach is an ambitious and lavish work supported by the National Performance Network (NPN). It is also difficult to categorize in any theatre textbook way, but that shouldn’t keep anyone away from its table of delights. The company tells us that they developed the show over three years with many rehearsals and creative help from nonresident artists. Written by Sibyl Kempson in collaboration with the Austin …
Review: For Fear the Glass May Shatter by The Vortex Repertory Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on April 26, 2014
For Fear the Glass May Shatter is an opera about physics. Stop right there, don’t leave! The first impression of this show directed by Bonnie Cullum at the Vortex is its high accessibility, quite surprising. Everyone must agree that an opera about physics is a refreshing change from yet another revival of a shallow canonical tale about violent European teenagers in love. I must back up. The opera is indeed set in Europe (and America), …
Review: Romeo and Juliet by The Baron's Men
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 20, 2014
Romeo and Juliet is probably the first work of Shakespeare that most of us encounter, and sometimes it's the only one. That story of two star-crossed lovers is the most likely opportunity to interest distracted adolescents in the work of the 'Bard.' Pedagogically it's pretty effective: Two impetuous and self-centered teenagers flout convention and through a series of mishaps and misapprehensions end their lives in a creepy crypt, desperately disappointed. What's not to like, kids? …
Review: Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean by The Wimberley Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 17, 2014
Reunions are some of the most exquisite torture to which we ordinary folk submit ourselves. They offer the chance to click the button on the stopwatch of time and to discover how lives have diverged -- or not. It's the shock of the transformed familiar, perhaps, or it's a moment to flaunt or at least assess ourselves. One of my classmates assiduously dieted away twenty pounds to present herself renewed at a high school reunion. …
Review: Marvin's Room by Trinity Street Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 16, 2014
The title of Scott McPherson's Marvin's Room appeared to me at first recollection to be puzzling or simply misleading. After all, we never do see Marvin, the father felled twenty years earlier by a stroke. That character lives in the dim light of an adjacent bedroom and we glimpse scarcely any of the space he inhabits. We're drawn instead into a different space, the room that is defined by family connections. It's a space that …
Review: Roaring by Austin Playhouse
by David Glen Robinson
Published on April 14, 2014
Austin Playhouse is producing the premiere run of Cyndi Williams’ Roaring at their Highland Mall theatre in central Austin. Balancing their recent trend of producing contemporary plays by international playwrights (David Ives’ Venus in Fur and The Liar), Austin Playhouse has given an impressive opportunity to a long-time Austin theatre playwright, Cyndi Williams. The multi-talented Williams is most often seen on stage or gaining laudable credits in the design fields. Her play Roaring is now …