Recent Reviews
Review: The Tempest by Austin Shakespeare
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 17, 2010
The real entertainers of this piece are Michael Amendola as Caliban, elastic, resentful and credulous; Nathan Jerkins who creates a joyfully inebriated Stephano,; and Michael Dalmon's not-too-bright but terribly earnest Trinculo the jester. Every moment these fellows are on stage is a delight.
Prospero's kingdom is an enchanted isle, suggested by the wide circle marked out on the floor of the Rollins Theatre. As did Shakespeare, Ann Ciccolella invites the audience to create that world by participating with their imaginations. The scenery is minimal -- little more than towering dark blue flats at the back of the playing area, an unassuming balcony or elevation at stage right, rear, and a couple of rickety bushes on platforms pushed onstage …
Review: Dead White Males by Sustainable Theatre Project
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 14, 2010
Saving the piece from its forced absurdities are the performances of two in the cast: Suzanne Balling with the obligatory role for anti-fascist drama of the common man (here, woman) driven to question hollow authority, and Dennis Kelleher Bailey as the pedophile principal, flawed and aware of it.
Fascism isn't funny but it offers huge targets for satire. The premise is familiar: an eager novice takes up a new calling, infused with idealism, and finds that not only is the actual day-to-day work grueling but the authorities are self-serving, hypocritical and exploitative. Dead White Males is a valentine to those teacher-victims and a savage attack on administrators of educational systems. The Sustainable Theatre Project stretches a bit by linking the play to recent …
Muses IV: Memories of A House
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 10, 2010
Not until a 10-minute break after scene 4 did we study out the fact that in the first three vignettes we had viewed Denise the tippling therapist portrayed in turn, over the lapse of more than a year and in reverse chronological order, by Cathie Sheridan, Jen Brown and Kimberley Mead.
The Vestige Group's annual Muses performance in a private residence is a fun evening outing. It's a bit like supervised trick or treating, except that the ten encounters for your group of fewer than a dozen take place on the same property. And you're not in disguise; the actors are. The experience is designed for about 30 persons each night. We gathered on that big old porch for check-in as the evening shadows were gathering. …
Review: Metamorphoses by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 06, 2010
Call this the Cirque de Soleil approach to Greek myth. . . .(In case you didn't catch it, the Apple computer represented Pandora's box, the one that unleashed evils on the world.)
Call this the Cirque de Soleil approach to Greek myth. From its 1996 origin at Northwestern University Mary Zimmerman's piece used a pool of water as its central metaphor -- suggesting the chaos at creation and both the life-giving and life-threatening qualities of water and the sea. At Northwestern the piece was staged next to and in an Olympic standard pool. The water setting was retained at the Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago and at the …
Review: Into The Woods by City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on September 02, 2010
Music director and production pianist David Blackburn's direction, dexterity and tireless fingers kept 'Into The Woods' springing forward from one surprise to another.
This energetic and clever staging of Stephen Sondheim's Into The Woods confirms for me once again my belief that Austin's City Theatre offers the best entertainment value for money available in the area today. Ours is an age of disclaimers, so let me be explicit, with a "claimer": I have been a fan of the City Theatre for more than two years. Andy Berkovsky and the artists working with him at the tidy little 85-seat …
Review: The Last Days of Judas Iscariot by The Royal Pretenders
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 31, 2010
Playwright Steven Adly Guirgis takes a long time to set up the courtroom drama, a tiresomely predictable dramatic device. As in a slogging heavyweight title fight, some of the rounds are engaging and entertaining while others are lost time.
. . . or, perhaps, The Road to Salvation as imagined by Bart Simpson. The setting is a clichéd and unfunny take on the Day of Judgment, the plot's a mess, the characters are mostly caricatures, and The Last Days of Judas Iscariot was LONG -- close to three hours, including one intermission. A brilliant and moving play was hiding inside this mess, one that came clear in the concluding scenes, after the grunge and …