Recent Reviews
Review: John and Jen by Penfold Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 08, 2010
Andrew Cannata has the job of growing up twice in this script. The first act features some charming and evocative brother-and-sister play before Jen leaves home. In the second act Cannata's distress with his Mom is presented.
Working with Michael McKelvey of St. Edward's University, the budding Penfold Theatre has occupied relatively unexploited theatre territory in Austin: the contemporary intimate musical. John & Jen has a genre resemblance to their pioneer show The Last Five Years. Two actors in an intimate space, with most of the story told in song and complex, sophisticated accompanying music. On his website, composer Andrew Lippa calls it a "chamber musical." The music is scored for keyboard, …
Review: The Flaming Idiots by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 05, 2010
It's all juggling and comedy, and it's all spectacle. Don't expect any narrative other than the quirky bounce of their funnymen personalities.
They juggled and joked together for 20 years, and now they're back, while they can still do it. In his program note, Rob Williams -- the beaming little guy in the yellow shirt -- says that the Zach gave them the step up from renaissance fairs and comedy clubs to the world of regional theatres, network television and off-Broadway. They disbanded in 2004 but last year resurrected the act, playing in Edmonton, Canada, then moving …
Review: The Elephant Man by Emily Ann Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 04, 2010
The confinement of the playing space emphasizes the confinement of the characters -- not only that of Merrick in his lamed body and hospital refuge but also those constraints placed upon others by their social roles and their institutions.
Director Bridget Farias and the EmilyAnn Theatre crew in Wimberley are running The Elephant Man Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays for four weekends in January and February, an intrepid undertaking for a community-based arts group in a town with a population of only about 4,000. More impressive than their raw courage in taking on a tough script and slow-motion tragedy is the fact that they carry it out with grace and depth. The company creates a …
Review: Misalliance by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 03, 2010
Shaw sends a grand surprise into the middle of the long weekend : a two-passenger aeroplane that crash lands onto the nearby greenhouse. What a machina ex deos!
Is it only coincidence that Austin theatre is staging a rolling centenary celebration of George Bernard Shaw? Not of his birth or death -- we'd have to wait another forty or so years for either of those, since the man lived well into his 90's --but of his plays exploring matrimony.In late 2008 Different Stages gave us a twinkling production of Shaw's 1908 comedy Getting Married and now Austin Playhouse is offering Misalliance, first staged …
Review: Stuck on GeeDot by Generic Ensemble Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 30, 2010
La'arni Ayuma and Saray de Jesus play remarkably true to Beckett's dour comedy and prickly humor, while altering the text and dialogues completely.
Their choice of a company name offers a hint of the deadpan drollery of their approach to art and to the audience. In a town that whelps new theatre companies as if it were a puppy mill, these young women label themselves the "generic ensemble company."Generic as in "common" and "absolutely typical" or as in "no longer under patent" or, reaching a bit, as in "an embodiment of an abstract ideal." And generic as in …
Review: Seamstress by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 29, 2010
Melanie Dean is charming and reassuring, as she's fretting with notions both visible and invisible. Fussing about the shop ,she chats to the spectators, stand-ins for the apparently silent client.
Is it ethical for a theatre journalist to accept a cookie from an actress in mid-performance?How about if everyone in the audience has a chance at the home baked goods, because Melanie Dean has handed front-row spectators two big plastic bowls filled with cookies?There were lots left when the bowl came along the third row. I dipped in without compunction, happy to trust in Melanie's persona as the garrulous small-town Texas widow who has been …