Recent Reviews
Review: Steel Magnolias by The City Theatre Company
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 24, 2013
Chinquapin Parish comes to the City. To the City Theatre, that is, in the form of Robert Harling’s superbly written modern classic, Steel Magnolias. Theatre fans cannot see this masterpiece frequently enough; they must review it often to catch the fast-flying wicked barbs, double entendres, bon mots, and just plain corny jokes that fill its two hours and ten minutes. It feels like about one hour because laughter makes one lose all track of time. …
Review: You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown by The Wimberley Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 23, 2013
The polish, confidence and dash of the choreography and song in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown reinforce the cartoonist's basic message: Life can be beautiful if we reduce our concerns to the most elemental ones.
As fresh as the ink of the morning paper on a bright fall day, the Wimberley Players' staging of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown is big, bold and beautiful. And so is the cast; director Jim Lindsay has handpicked some of the most attractive talent from the region. Did you know that this musical by Clark Gesner is approaching its 50th birthday? You'd never know it from this production. The original version was done …
Review: Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding) by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 21, 2013
Federico García Lorca's Bodas de Sangre takes places in the stark and arid landscape of the mind. The setting is rural Spain, somewhere far out in the countryside, and the characters are peasant families. They have no names, with the single exception of Leonardo, the angry and frustrated young farmer who precipitates the tragedy. García Lorca identifies the others by role: the intended groom (novio), the bride (novia), the mother, the neighbor, the father of …
Review: There is a Happiness that Morning is by Capital T Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 19, 2013
This production of Mickle Maher’s There is a Happiness That Morning Is generated considerable marketing material on its fictional premise: two teachers of William Blake’s poetry at a crumbling east coast liberal arts college became so overwhelmed by it all that they had throwdown carnal knowledge of each other on the leafy day-lit campus. Their students witnessed their intimacy, as did the president of the college, and everyone else. The president and trustees want them …
Review: The Belle of Amherst by Austin Shakespeare
by Jessica Helmke
Published on November 17, 2013
At Home with Emily Dickinson
I told myself, "I should have brought my favorite pen. Or maybe my secret stash of amateur poems? Some decorated stationary perhaps? Then again, freshly baked sugar cookies are sure to do the trick. . . ." I was finally going to meet her. The dark, secluded and intriguing poetic genius herself, Ms. Emily Dickinson. I waited patiently and quietly in my chair for over an hour, but she never showed. Instead, a woman dressed …
Review: Fixing King John by Rude Mechs
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 13, 2013
A wild ride, two hours or so including the intermission, Fixing King John doesn't so much fix/repair an inferior script as fix/set in our imaginations a portrait and a fable relevant to our own day, struggling mightily in contemporary American speech for meaning.
Kirk Lynn's script isn't Shakespeare. Fixing King John is a tight, fast story with dialogue full of fucking obscenities, one suited not for PBS but maybe to HBO. E. Jason Liebrecht creates King John as an edgy, angry, powerful capo with the force of Jimmy Cagney and the morals of Tony Soprano. Director Madge Darlington puts the Rude Mechs' staging into the confined space of their Off-Shoot rehearsal studio behind the Off-Center in east Austin. …