Recent Reviews
Review: Alice In Wonderland (SRT) by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 18, 2010
The problem with nonsense, of course, is that it just doesn't make -- sense. Dear Alice faces enigma after enigma, encountering the most positively arbitrary personages the author could imagine.
Macey Mayfield with her china doll good looks and silvery little voice is a lovely match for the imaginary Alice whom Lewis Carroll sent off to Wonderland. Children's theatre in the style of the Scottish Rite Theatre requires of actors a special willingness and ability. The actors have their audience just two steps away, on mats spread in the wide open space at the center of the theatre. SRCT scripts pretty much banish the fourth …
Review: Macbeth by Austin Drama Club
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 17, 2010
An evening with the ADC is an eerie and sometimes confusing experience. This is a word-of-mouth world, where the ADC core is willing to share their experience only with those who are is really, really interested in seeking them out.
Sarah England's opening turn as the witch in Macbeth for Austin Drama Club felt so, so right. She's one witch for three, huddled over a trash can lit from below and sporadically spouting CO2 smoke. Her cutting voice and spooky moves make you understand that she believes, really believes that there is dark magic at work here.That belief is the underpinning for the Austin Drama Club, an almost inexplicable group of devotees to the dark …
Review: Peer Gynt by Mary Moody Northen Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 16, 2010
The dozen other members of the ensemble turn in the action like glittering, changing figures of a kaleidoscope, often singing commentary or accompanying themselves on guitar, violin, and clarinet.
You might get lost in the tidy space of St. Ed's Mary Moody Northen Theatre if you haven't done your homework before you get to the theatre. Peer Gynt is not your dependable old social realism from Ibsen. This story is a wild ride of fable, myth and allegory that takes you across the world and through an entire prankish life, written by a young dramatist who had escaped bleak Norway for the dazzling sunscapes …
Review: Mary Stuart by Austin Shakespeare
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 14, 2010
But this evening in that haunting space belongs entirely to the queens. Helen Merino as Mary Stuart and Pamela Christian as Elizabeth are foes and yet so alike -- as Schiller reminds us when Elizabeth snaps bitterly at the kneeling Mary, "I could have easily been in your place."
Mary Stuart in Austin Shakespeare's staging at the Rollins Theatre provides a powerful, cathartic experience for the spectator. Schiller's drama gives us two sixteenth-century queens, each with a claim to the English throne, wrapped in tangled interests of state and church, trapped together like scorpions in a bottle and surrounded by plotters, counselors, and mendacity. This Mary Stuart plays like Shakespeare, with actors in stylized Elizabethan garb moving in a long court laid between ranks …
Review: Excuse Me While I Change by Michelle Cheney
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 11, 2010
Cabaret entertainment requires wit and personality. She hangs those clever songs on a life story and a theme. In the program she quotes Katherine Mansfield.
Michelle Cheney has a lot of fans and friends in this town -- enough to fill up the 85-seat City Theatre in direct competition with the Superbowl. Mind you, the feminine persuasion was visibly in the majority, probably having abandoned their men friends to the Nachos, beer and television as they went off to enjoy Michelle's patter, song, wit and costume changes.Michelle Cheney has often appeared on Austin stages, but she made an early confession: …
Review: Buried Child by The City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 09, 2010
Keylee Koop as the ingénue Shelley is the only healthy one here. This L.A. girly-girl does her best to deal with this world of relentless downers, but she, too, gets to a point when she’s goaded to the attack.
Tom Waits’ discordant, sardonic music is a perfect match for Sam Shepard’s Buried Child. The program gives no credit for sound design, but City Theatre's artistic director Andy Berkovsky tells me that director Caleb Straus made the choice. Like Tom Waits, Shepard brings us into a world of discord and grotesque despair. Shepard creates a distorted vision of the all American rural idyll. Think you’ve had a tough time visiting the prospective in-laws? Forget it. …