Recent Reviews
Review: The Motherfucker with the Hat by Capital T Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 20, 2013
“Love conquers all” is the phrase for Jackie --and it certainly conquered him.
Capital T Theatre’s production of The Motherfucker with the Hat (TMFWTH) by Stephen Adly Guirgis fairly screamed “exploitation!” in its promise -- or rather, warning -- of foul language and nudity. As usual , the reality escaped the hype in unpredictable ways. TMFWTH was a far more serious play than its unfortunate title suggested. The story of TMFWTH was fairly direct. Jackie (J. Ben Wolfe) comes home to the apartment he shared with his love, …
Review: The Motherfucker with the Hat by Capital T Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 20, 2013
The conclusion of the action is logical, very nearly inevitable, and arises directly from Jackie's inner flaws -- qualities and outcome that correspond very closely to the Aristotelian criteria for tragedy.
Let's get right down to that title. The expletive noun is one of the most offensive combinations in the English language, and many of us get a sharp visceral twinge seeing it used in the title of Guirgis's play. The noun and variants of its subsidiary combinant verb are also among the most common oral expressions in the English language, especially in American parlance. Words are powerful, especially when they evoke taboos. Publications and individuals …
Review: Three, or the Sound of the Great Existential Nothingness by Breaking String Theater
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on August 05, 2013
“People don’t want what you want,” Andre comments to Olga in a half-dismissive and half pleading tone, This ironically sums up the positions of all the characters in the play: ironically, because none of them can admit or even be sure of what they really want.
What Philosophers Call It A pause button. Many wish for it and none achieve it. Many of life’s moments skyrocket past us with meteor-like frenzy. Some we miss altogether, because we were simply too wrapped up in, well, what we consider to be life. Vonnegut fantasizes about something similar in Slaughterhouse Five: the ability to stretch time out like taffy, look at each and every important moment from our past, and understand how they brought …
Review: Three, or the Sound of the Great Existential Nothingness by Breaking String Theater
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 02, 2013
By the end, it is clear that the characters will continue to stumble through their personal wreckage, but from that point on without the grinding misery of worrying that things could be better or could have turned out differently.
Brother Andre’s cell ringtone is Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire, and that’s everything, right up front, for Three, or, The Sound of the Great Existential Nothingness by Timothy Braun. Each and every character on stage goes down, down, down in a burning ring of fire, seemingly without redemption. Breaking String Theater produces the play at the Off Center, possibly the east side’s most prestigious venue. In marketing material, the play is described as a modern …
Review: The Pillowman by 7 Towers Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on July 23, 2013
Director Christina Gutierrez chose some of Austin's most muscularly intellectual actors to create the piece. Travis Bedard's Katurian is earnest, eloquent and sly; Aaron Black endows brother Michael with vulnerability, effusive reactions and innocence.
The Pillowman takes place in a dark, eerie world that Martin McDonagh created back in 2003 when he moved away from his dark Irish ethnic plays The Beauty Queen of Leenan and The Lieutenant of Inishmore. The Hyde Park Theatre staged this piece in 2007, winning Ken Webster a B. Iden Payne for direction and critics' table awards for actors Jude Hickey and Kenneth Wayne Bradley. Both Southwestern University and the UT University Theatre Guild …
Review: One Night with Janis Joplin by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on July 20, 2013
One Night with Janis is fun, even if it takes you to a mythic 1970 that couldn't have existed. That backup band has got the hair, for example, but none of the hungry look; they're chunky Texas beer-drinking buddies.
The Zach Theatre has franchised Randy Johnson's concert show, dosing it with lively Joplin imitator Kacee Clanton from LA, top-quality local talent, and a high wall projected full of Colin Lowry's CGI. Clanton and the back-up band deliver some spot-on covers of Pearl's most famous numbers. It's a thumping, thrumming night of thrills, not so cheap, a mostly mindless celebration of the highs delivered to us by that gifted misfit from Port Arthur. The evening's …