Recent Reviews
Review: My Bugatti Story by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
Ehrmann has a lot of himself invested in this narrative. At times he comes across as confessional or woodenly self-obsessed, perfectly in keeping with the character.
My Bugatti Story is playing at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre as part of the 2009 FronterFest Long Fringe. Writer Paul Ehrmann plays Alexander, the principal character. Though there's a cast of six, the show is essentially a long monologue by Ehrmann, interspersed with illustrative scenes. The near-monologue format is appropriate, for most of the action is taking place in his head, or at least in his fantasies. At the opening, Alexander is found in a …
Review: Spaceman Dada Robot by Electronic Planet Ensemble with David Jewell
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 22, 2009
With his verse and in his persona Jewell presents us stories with wildly deadpan humor, a narrator compounded of equal parts David Byrne and Bill Murray.
Electronic Planet Ensemble's Spaceman Dada Robot can move you out of Austin's conventional theatre and out of Austin's club-based music scene. The characters and narrative are in your mind, as in a radio play, and the music is high-energy and percussive, with clouds of chords. Add an hour of images improbable, humorous and awesome, then put David Jewell in front of it. space travelit gets you out out of the houseit gets you out of …
Review: Love, Sex and the IRS by The Georgetown Palace Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 22, 2009
I enjoyed frequent chuckles at this nonsense, but overall, it just didn't work for me. I've spent some time puzzling about that, particularly since every other piece I've seen at the Palace has left me fully satisfied.
Actor/author Billy Van Zandt and his writing partner Jane Milmore banged out this comedy in 1979, backstage on the set of the first Star Trek movie. They took the principal roles in the debut performance at a dinner theatre in upper New York state. As Van Zandt tells it on their website, they were totally unprepared for the success of the piece or for the request from drama publishers Samuel French not only to publish …
Review: Miss Witherspoon by Different Stages
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 12, 2009
Underwood herself is worth well more than the price of admission, and at times the piece becomes a one-woman show. Hovering in that unexpected afterlife, she longs for release, rest and forgetfulness.
Jennifer Underwood is larger than life. Like famous stage personalities, she captures our attention utterly with her remarkable appearance, conviction and an acting talent that amounts almost to shape-changing. In Miss Witherspoon, directed by Karen M. Jambon for Different Stages and now playing at the City Theatre, Underwood is a deeply disappointed soul in the afterlife, determined not to give in to the requirement that she be reincarnated. Sometimes, with her stubborn will, she prevails; …
Review: Heron and Crane by DA! Theatre Collective
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 04, 2009
Anyone with an ounce of wonder left in his or her spirit would be pleased to make the acquaintance of such engaging characters as these.
New Year's Eve day, 2008. The sun had gone lower in the sky, sending broad yellow shafts of light across dusty Zilker Park under the First Street bridge. When we came back in half an hour to the HBMG venue, the DA! Theatre Collective was setting up for their touring children’s show, Heron & Crane. At the 4:30 showtime there was almost no audience. The DA! players had set up on the road. Almost without …
Review: The Last Five Years (2009) by Penfold Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 04, 2009
As this very handsome pair of actors work the story from both ends, we begin to realize that Brown and director Michael McKelvey are carefully dosing our emotions. Everyone loves someone who is in love.
Intimate but lonely, a haunted portrait of a relationship with the musical flair and lash of cabaret – The Last Five Years, produced by Penfold Theatre and now playing at the Larry L. King Theatre of Austin Playhouse, is a memorable evening spent with two talented characters in the most promising years of their lives. No one wants to watch the failure of a marriage, to hover as witnesses as hope, delight and enthusiasm go …