Recent Reviews
Review: Nunsense by Tex-Arts
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 12, 2009
There's a mischievous joy in this cast, and we share their good time. This production has the Tex-Arts stamp on it, with highly accomplished vocals and lively stepping.
A third production of Nunsense within 13 months! The Georgetown Palace did it in August of last year; Austin's City Theatre put it on this past June; and now Tex-Arts in Lakeway has just finished a three-week run.I almost didn't go, but Taylor T. posted comments on the "upcoming" item on the ALT blog, not once but twice, and told me that there was something extraordinary going on out there. So I found the time …
Review: Evil Dead, the musical by Doctuh Mistuh Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 12, 2009
It's outrageous, it's funny, it's a big cartoon in primary colors set to an energetic score and lyrics that offer doo-wop, 80s pop sounds, and up-tempo ballads (e.g., "All The Men In My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons").
Michael McKelvey and the cast & crew of Evil Dead, The Musicalhave a hit on their hands, if you take as evidence the turnout on opening night. The scene at the Salvage Vanguard was like trying to load a 747 at a tin-roofed shack in the Caribbean.Michael was astonished. Once he'd gotten the surging, enthusiastic elbow-to-elbow crowd into their places, he told us that as of that afternoon they'd had only 60 seats confirmed -- …
Review: Big Love by Texas State University
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 10, 2009
Big Love is Aeschylus super-lite, a chipper chance for the young company to act out a comic story about love, power and domination for the video generation.
Charles Mee's quirky fable Big Love is a reworking of the Greek legend of the Danaids, drawing in part on the earliest extant fragment of Western drama, The Suppliants. It's a story of the war between men and women.In that text Aeschylus presents about the first third of the story of the 50 daughters of Danaeus and the 50 sons of his twin brother Aegyptus, all of the youngsters being the great-great-grandchildren of the union …
Review: Murdered to Death by Sam Bass Community Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 09, 2009
You just know that in that atmosphere, once we get the house properly filled up, someone will wind up murdered. Or "murdered to death," as the dimly earnest acting Inspector Pratt later confides to his rather smarter subordinate.
Peter Gordon's script of Murdered to Death is a loving send-up of the British "whodunit" and in particular of Agatha Christie's drawing room murder mysteries. Dame Agatha's novels still sell vigorously today. Not so much in the United States, where we're more likely to encounter them at the public library or at used book sales along with discarded piles of Readers' Digest condensed books. But the French, the Germans, and -- presumably -- the British …
Review: Man of La Mancha by The Georgetown Palace Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 07, 2009
The Georgetown Palace production of Man of La Manchastarts out moody, atmospheric and harsh, and it comes surging beautifully through that dark, difficult second act.
The Georgetown Palace production of Man of La Manchastarts out moody, atmospheric and harsh, and it comes surging beautifully through that dark, difficult second act. The Inquisition is awaiting in the darkness above, and Cervantes is storytelling to save his life and possessions from the thieves and murderers who surround him. In Cervantes' fantastical tale of the deranged Alonso Quijana, the Knight of the Woeful Countenance has lost it. The knight's beloved Dulcinea--Aldonza the prostitute …
Review: Frost/Nixon by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 05, 2009
These two actors give the illusion of a chemistry and a growing affinity between Frost and Nixon. The journalist out for a career-saving scoop develops an understanding and an intuition about the isolated ex-president.
Almost thirty years had gone by when British dramatist Peter Morgan wrote this piece. The Gielgud Theatre picked it up from an "off-West-End" theatre in 2006. A Broadway production ran for 137 performances in 2007. Frank Langella won both a Tony Award for best actor, as well as the corresponding Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.Thirty years is about the right lapse of time before one exorcises demons and rehabilitates felons. Pain is remembered …