Recent Reviews
Review: The Girl who Became Legend by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 30, 2023
Leaving dusty Dustbin in search of rainclouds, "Raina" (get it?) meets legends on her quest. This colorful, imaginative staging of Sarah Saltwick's play charms, surprises, and educates.
The form is familiar—this is a "quest" story in which the protagonist leaves home to wander through the unknown "beyond" to experience a series of encounters and adventures but eventually returns home wiser and accepted by former adversaries and critics. Sarah Saltwick's first modification is evident in the title, for the questor is female, an earnest, sweet, booted young teen. "Raina" -- that's a tell! -- lives with her mother in Dustbin, a huddle of …
Announcement: CTXLT Graphics Crash by Central Texas Live Theatre (CTXLT)
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 28, 2023
Equipment failure on September 27 damaged or destroyed all graphics posted at CTXLT since August 22, 2022.
Apologies to all Central Texas theatre companies and artists and to all readers of CTXLiveTheatre.com -- on September 27, 2023, equipment failed at our internet hosting company and damaged or destroyed all graphics files posted since August 22, 2022. All postings -- reviews, audition notices, arts news, and performance information -- were affected. Text was unaffected, so on any post made over the past thirteen months the graphics have disappeared. They've been replaced by blank …
Review: KOMOREBI by Navaji David Nava and Ventana Ballet
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 27, 2023
Influenced by many world traditions, Navaji David Nava's KOMOREBI dances were intensely beautiful, stamping us with the expansiveness of the brilliant choreographer's spiritual journey.
Ventana Ballet is one of those new advanced ballet companies in our dance-rich town. Along with PerformaDance and Ballet Austin, it pushes the envelope of dance and the meaning of ballet for the fine arts. They try new forms and ideas, unrestrained by the ballet canon. Rarely do they wear toe shoes onstage. At the same time, they insist that what they create is ballet, nothing less, nothing more. Their own acceptance of that seeming contradiction …
Review: Antigonick by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 27, 2023
This glittering enticement to the strange and wonderful world of Greek drama gives no time to address the deep moral question inherent in Antigone's story.
A long time ago, distinguished Classics professor Dr. Charles Stow commented to his Greek Theatre class, "No one performs these plays they way they were written." That was a scholar's somber statement of fact. In antiquity, three masked actors stood in the amphitheatre and declaimed. A chorus stood unmoving and responded in strophes, with the chorus leader sometimes speaking individually. Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides used formal language to explore legends deeply familiar to the entire …
Review: George Gershwin Alone by Hershey Felder, on tour at Zach Theatre, Austin
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on September 23, 2023
Hershy Felder, one of the most naturalistic actors working today, brilliantly tells Gershwin's story and attacks the piano with a visceral ferocity, channeling the man's spirit, personal ambitions, and frustrations.
Was he happy? This inspired question seemed to come out of nowhere, as if plucked from the stratosphere, in order to formulate in words, the thought the whole audience was unknowingly thinking. It was asked during the question-and-answer session that immediately followed Hershey Felder’s unquestionably brilliant performance …
Review: Raven-Winged Hours by The Archive Theater Company
by David Glen Robinson
Published on September 11, 2023
Raven-Winged Hours is a marvelous work. Some theatre reviews are lazy lists of superlatives. Archive Theatre's production is one of the few that deserve such praise.
A new production focused on Edgar Alan Poe has just opened in Austin. Raven-Winged Hours at the Jourdan Bachman Pioneer Farms in northeast Austin. It's produced by The Archive Theater, led by Jennifer Rose Davis. Chris Fontanes of Bottle Alley Theatre directs. Theirs is an auspicious conjunction of theatrical forces. It is surprising, really, that the literature of Edgar Allan Poe has not ramified further through popular culture. Certainly, it is represented iconically by the black-wearing …