Recent Reviews
Review: At Home at the Zoo by Palindrome Theatre (2010-2013)
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 12, 2010
Jude Hickey is the editor and Nigel O'Hearn is the intruder. You couldn't cast this piece any better, at least, not here in Austin.
Edward Albee once commented, "If you can sum a play in one sentence, that's how long the play should be." That's a fine bon mot and a cutting challenge to all who try to work in the odd art form of the theatre review. Albee has challenged and puzzled the public, the theatre community and academics since The Zoo Story, the second half of this theatre evening, first took the stage in Berlin 51 years …
Review: Shadowlands by Trinity Street Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 10, 2010
José Shenkner is a wonder in this role, particularly for his physical control of the character while delivering a complex, layered emotional portrayal. Linda Miller Rath creates Gresham with sharp tongue and acute sensibilities. The two play superbly against and with one another.
I am a bookish sort of person -- not fiercely literary, but more inclined to take my reference points from a printed page than from a screen. I was aware of C.S. Lewis because my daughter and son had absorbed the Narnia books and because back in my own school days I had wrestled a bit with The Screwtape Letters, but I had not much more knowledge of him than that. When this piece came …
Review: The Crucible by Renaissance Austin
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 04, 2010
Miller's title has resonance for our own times. A "crucible" is a receptacle used for mixing materials at extremely high temperatures, as in a smelting furnace. In simplest terms, a "melting pot," for a nation in which that metaphor is more and more in question.
Arthur Miller's play The Crucible deals with dark and frightening times. Though the setting is 1692 Salem, Massachusetts during the wide-ranging hunt for witches, this 1953 piece is equally an evocation of America's sudden dark fear of enemies in its midst. Just years earlier, in World War II the Soviet Union had been considered a valiant ally; with the division of Europe, the threat of the atom bomb and the populist hectoring of politicians such …
Review: A Most Unsettling and Possibly Haunted Evening in the Parlour of the Brothers Grimm by Hidden Room Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 03, 2010
That impossibly long title might suggest more whimsy than one could stomach, but in fact the Evening in the Parlour of the Brothers Grimm was something of a Halloween valentine. Or more precisely, perhaps, a delicate, exciting dark chocolate delight, laced with spices and bitter almonds.
We had a lovely evening at the Hidden Room last weekend in the company of some of Austin's more whimsical and talented theatre artists. That impossibly long title might suggest more whimsy than one could stomach, but in fact the Evening in the Parlour of the Brothers Grimm was something of a Halloween valentine. Or more precisely, perhaps, a delicate, exciting dark chocolate delight, laced with spices and bitter almonds. Sweet enough to make you …
Review: The Servant Girl Annihilator by Weird City Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 02, 2010
'Servant Girl Annihilator' evokes grim true history of horror and victimization, and as a technique, the tour on the stage is halfway between conventional theatre and spook house.
For Halloween and for the following weekend your friends at the Weird City Theatre Company take you on a ghost tour. In the program they express special thanks to Monica Ballard and the Austin Ghost Tours for help with research on the late night attacks and rapes of 1884-1885 recalled in the piece. The title is taken from a comment in a letter written by the 23-year-old William Sydney Porter -- O. Henry -- who …
Review: The 39 Steps by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 29, 2010
The theatrical spoof has actions and effects going comically wrong, reminding us that we are spectators, watching real people. Players play actors playing characters, and they'll drop out of character to mug, heave a sigh or remonstrate.
Austin Playhouse scheduled Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps for a run of almost two months, but I didn't manage to use my season tickets until the penultimate weekend of the run. Not that I expected to be disappointed; The 39 Steps won an Olivier award for best comedy in 2007 and the Broadway version, with the added tag tying it to Hitchcock, ran for two years before moving off-Broadway. And not too far off Broadway …