Recent Reviews
Review: Tigers Be Still by Hyde Park Theatre
by Catherine Dribb
Published on July 27, 2012
Tigers Be Still will have you falling out of those new comfy chairs at the Hyde Park Theater. It's that good. Wow. Raunchy and redemptive.
Kim Rosenstock’s play Tigers Be Still is a well-woven, touching narrative about family triumph (thread that needle!), tragedy (Bette Midler karaoke is never okay) and of course, tigers. And it will have you falling out of those new comfy chairs at the Hyde Park Theater. It’s that good. With a sick mother upstairs and two sisters trying to get their sh*t together, Tigers Be Still seemed an unusual pick for Hyde Park Theatre after Marion …
Review: Dinner in Dubai by Bernadette Nason
by Michael Meigs
Published on July 11, 2012
Unexpectedly and with a flourish, Nason brings all this learning together and tells us just how this chipper English adventuress wound up in Austin. It's an eminently satisfying account and an outcome for which we can all be grateful.
Bernadette Nason is one of those unexpected treasures who make Austin theatre such a pleasure to explore. I first saw her at the Austin Playhouse in Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward shortly after we arrived in Austin almost five years ago -- before, in fact, the notion of writing about Austin theatre even occurred to me. Bernadette played Madame Arcati, the loony medium who unleashes the spirit world upon the wealthy but hapless author Charles …
Review: 'Tis Pity She's A Whore by 7 Towers Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on July 09, 2012
Travis Bedard is almost ridiculously good at creating multiple characters -- but then, he has three characters so vastly different from one another that if he wasn't obliged to keep his abundant beard and shining pate you just might not recognize him from one to another.
At the intermission beneath the giant writhing oak tree behind the Cathedral of Junk my wife leaned over and whispered. "These actors are really good."John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's A Whore is a tangled skein, for sure, and it builds inexorably from a canter to a gallop to a thundering bloody finish that's if anything bloodier and more devastating than that of Shakespeare's Hamlet, staged some thirty years earlier. 'Tis Pity does not reach Shakespeare's …
Review: DayBoyNightGirl by DA! Theatre Collective
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 11, 2012
Kirk German is a gifted playwright; the language never lapses into mere functional storytelling, but at times the words in the mouths of the actors seem to vault into iambic hexameter, giving an Elizabethan lilt to many of the text passages. The thing sparkles.
I walked two blocks to reach the Long Center, with its blackbox Rollins Studio Theatre, where DayBoyNightGirl played. Without a doubt, the spectacular 21st century cityscape of downtown Austin upstages every performance staged there. After all, the downtown view is the first thing one sees upon arriving at the Long Center. DayBoyNightGirl pushed back admirably against the sensory overload. The show was spectacular at every level. If you’re tired of small plays in small theatres, …
Review: Dividing the Estate by Zach Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 04, 2012
Eugene Lee's monologue is at once a distilled narrative, sermon and symbol; and it is decidedly Faulknerian. Its meanings are layered on at several levels, all in relatively few words.
The Zach Theatre is a great showcase for local and regional art and talent, claiming as it does all the advantages of location, etc. It seems to hold court over Lady Bird Lake, with hill country scenery upstream and the shining, multi-colored towers of Austin across the lake. I visited Zach to see Dividing the Estate, Horton Foote’s 1989 play about a Texas family falling apart over estate inheritance. To cut to the chase, the …
Review: Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Palindrome Theatre (2010-2013)
by David Glen Robinson
Published on May 13, 2012
If you are considering going to live theatre as the antidote to the many unsatisfying and expensive pastimes out there, Palindrome’s The Accidental Death of an Anarchist is the first choice. Please find it and go.
The Up Collective is in one of my favorite places, in East Austin, specifically at 2326 E. Cesar Chavez St. The name is easy to get—one has to walk upstairs to a second floor gallery where the play is performed. The art on the walls is really, seriously good and is priced like it, too. Palindrome Theatre's set is simple, designed for mobility. It has two standing door frames with no doors, a table and …