Recent Reviews
Review: Lear (adapted) by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 05, 2011
This Lear and Ramirez's approach oblige me to acknowledge a divide that I dislike: that between my own twentieth-century cultural consciousness, rooted in reading and narrative text, and the peculiar twenty-first century media mind of contemporary America.
Shakespeare's great tragedy is a fable that dares portray in resounding verse some of mankind's most common but most harrowing issues. The tyranny of the selfish old, set against the arrogance of the selfish young; the toxic dissolution of family ties and family hierarchy; the horror of ageing and senescence; the inevitability of human downfall; ambition, evil, and the sacrifice of innocents. These huge and inescapable issues are rooted in the human condition. We huddle …
Review: Lear (adapted) by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 22, 2011
Lear's rage against the storm is converted into a confused confrontation with paparazzi, and key narration is projected as sound-bites from MSNBC-style talking heads, proving that style can defeat substance.
Short take: The Vortex version of Lear features several accomplished Austin actors, including most notably Jennifer Underwood in the title role, but director Rudy Ramirez trivializes Shakespeare's great epic of royal folly and delusion. Lear's rage against the storm is converted into a confused confrontation with paparazzi, and key narration is projected as sound-bites from MSNBC-style talking heads, proving that style can defeat substance. Cross-gender casting for the roles of Kent and Edda (Edgar) is …
Review: Hedda Gabler by Classic Theatre of San Antonio
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 20, 2011
Asia Ciaravino is haunting in the title role. That quiet, watchful oval face is almost unblinking, She has the unconscious beauty of a woman who little cares whether others look at her or not.
Mr. and Mrs. George Tesman return to Norway after six months of honeymoon in Europe. In their absence family friend Judge Brack has arranged the purchase of a city mansion at great expense and furnished it lavishly. Ibsen's Hedda Gabler opens on the morning after their arrival at the new residence and a new domestic life. Allan S. Ross designed this set with meticulous detail. The audience has the time to study the heavy furniture, …
Review: Love's Labor's Lost by Austin Shakespeare
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 16, 2011
This is a fine evening of theatre and a gift to Austin. It's colorful, funny, accomplished and Shakespeare, all together.
Robert Faires' imaginative staging of Love's Labor's Lost takes place at the Sheffield Hillside Theatre in Zilker Park, literally a stone's throw away from Barton Springs pool. Spectators spread out blankets or set up lawn chairs in the sloped meadow above the playing area and settle in for the pleasures of free entertainment for a Texas evening in May. Love's Labor's Lost is one of Shakespeare's earliest comedies and not one of the world's favorites. …
Review: Clybourne Park by University of Texas Theatre & Dance
by Michael Meigs
Published on May 11, 2011
Clybourne Park is horrible and funny and deadly accurate about the psychological transformation of America.
Clybourne Park was here and then gone, a self-combusting event that deserved a far longer run in this town -- or anywhere else, for that matter. The UT Department of Theatre and Dance had seized upon plays by Bruce Norris of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre for MFA end-of-term showcase productions at the Lab Theatre. Norris' 1994 The Pain and the Itch directed by Lee Abraham played five times in the last week of April in that …
Review: Chesapeake by Paladin Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on April 30, 2011
Stites' delivery of Lee Blessing's Chesapeake was the most gripping act of theatre imagination I've ever seen in Austin. Take that with as many grains of salt as you like.
Sometimes the miracle happens. Theatre is a collusion between actors and the audiences: You pretend to be somebody and I'll pretend to believe you. In the subtitle to his 2010 book-length essay The Necessity of Theatre, UT philosophy professor Paul Woodroof calls it "the art of watching and being watching." Writing for a rationalist public in 1817 Coleridge defended the use of the fantastical in poetry by invoking "that willing suspension of disbelief for the …