Recent Reviews
Review: Agamemnon by City on a Hill* Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 28, 2011
Kimberley Mead as Clytemnestra had impressively mastered the language and joined it to gesture and presence. She gave the queen a lively, alluring murderous intelligence in which every syllable had meaning.
Agamemnon as produced by City on a Hill* Productions and directed by David J. Boss is a satisfyingly crunchy rendition of the first part of Aeschylus' Orestia. In this season of Academy Award nominations it might be useful to note that the trilogy won the annual competition at the Greater Dionysian Festival in Athens in 458 B.C. In a chronological sense it's not "the first play in the Western canon," as stated in the program. …
Review: Howl by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 27, 2011
Dark-eyed with her throaty voice and long mane of dark hair, Harrison could have been one of those beat babes back in the 1950's.
She calls it Howl, after Ginsberg's 1955 poem, but Teresa Harrison greeted her opening night audience with quiet confidentiality, joking and wrestling with a microphone stand as her accompanist Mark Williams caressed his great bass fiddle, painted in 1960's psychedelica. She'd set up a cardboard triptych of quotations out in the lobby, witty or gnomic remarks from Charlie Parker, Mae West, Sartre, Keith Richards and many others, a bartlett's of Ginsberg's century. Dark-eyed with her …
Review: Spirits to Enforce by Capital T Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2011
And just about the time that we begin to understand that they're seeking this money for a theatrical production, for chrissakes, The Pleaser makes the big step: he offers to reveal to the prospective patron on the other end of the line his Secret Identity!!
With 12 superheroes on stage, who ya gonna call? I picked over the suite of portraits at Capital T Theatre's website and I was seriously tempted by blonde Jenny Gravenstein with the come-hither eyes as The Page, particularly since Capital T is using her for one of its promo posters. That would be a sexist indulgence in fantasy, though, so I settled on Austin newcomer Jay Fraley, who mans the central slot at the phone …
Review: Planet of the Mermaids by Electronic Planet Ensemble
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 25, 2011
David Jewell's laconic verse and wryly reflective spoken images open your mind up the way a mild dose of psylocbin might do, while your autonomous nervous system grasps that rock 'n' roll sound track.
Electronic Planet Ensemble is the group of Austin cool rockers who invented the "music of the spheres" genre. Like the earth itself, they come orbiting through the Vortex once a year with another adventure in space and time. In January 2009 it was Spaceman Dada Robot; in January 2010 it was Surfin' UFO. In October 2009, breaking that pattern with a bit of space-time insouciance, they sailed by in a reprise of their In.Car.Nation, a …
Review: Lost Land by Wogglebug Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 22, 2011
Jenny Kokai's Lost Land is engaging and entertaining but unfocussed, a multifold parable in which a sunken fiberglass whale is the narrator.
Jenny Kokai's Lost Land is engaging and entertaining but unfocussed, a multifold parable in which a sunken fiberglass whale is the narrator. Four stories are anchored at one place: "Lost Land," a lake at the center of a Disney-style theme park. The stories are widely separated in time. The unseen leviathan narrator speaks either from outside time or from some date far in the future. Fred Bothwell is the voice of "Moby," a resigned, lightly …
Review: A Samuel Beckett Cabaret by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 22, 2011
A Samuel Beckett Cabaret is a nerve-straining, delicious, in-your-face examination of memory, human fraility and theatre itself.
With no particular fanfare, Rick Roemer is offering you the chance to understand the stretch and diversity of the art of the professional actor. But just for a brief shining moment, so check your agenda. Roemer appears in these stark pieces by Samuel Beckett this afternoon, Tuesday evening the 25th and Sunday afternoon the 30th. As the complement, you can appreciate his appearance as the haughty, comic Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest …