Recent Reviews
Review: Alice in Wonderland, musical by The City Theatre Company
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 30, 2008
The City Theatre compensates with sight gags, vivid costumes, song, dance and a hilarious klatch of creatures certain to keep everyone entertained
The City Theatre gives us a rollicking musical good time with Alice in Wonderland and at the same time avoids the deadliest sin of adaptations – dumbifying (cf., the discussion between the Gryphon and Alice concerning “uglifying”). Those of us who met our most cherished heroes of childhood not in cartoons but rather in words on the page or in tales read aloud have strong feelings about them. Certain precious books of childhood stand to …
Review: The Positively Serene Death of Sir Ritter Hans von Wittenstein zu Wittenstein by Aggressive Muse
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 29, 2008
There’s lots of imagination on display here. Some of the actors are superb, while others offer us characters that are engagingly grotesque. Some, including some of the principals, don’t really understand theatrical diction.
Aggressive Muse productions lives up to its name with this disturbing production of The Positively Serene Death of Sir Ritter Hans von Wittenstein zu Wittenstein. Under the direction of playwright/adapter Josie Collier, assisted by Kate Meehan, the company transforms a translation of Jean Giraudoux’s piece of 1939 Ondine, turning it into a far darker and more confused tale than the original. Collier and Meehan first adapted Ondine in 2004. This further adapation, according to the …
Review: Nunsense by The Georgetown Palace Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 25, 2008
Imagine the sight of these sober-clad ladies grinning, wearing bright-colored tap shoes and stomping up a storm, and you’ll get an idea of the absurdly wonderful entertainment they provide.
How do you make holy water?” “I don’t know, how DO you make holy water?”“You boil the hell out of it!” Cornball, right? But funny, especially when the dialogue is between a couple of wisecracking nuns on either side of the audience. Nunsense, a (very) musical (very goofy) comedy at the Georgetown Palace Theatre in Georgetown, Texas is playing to packed houses of very amused Georgetownians. And Austinites will have a helluva a good time …
Review: Brass Ring by A Chick and A Dude Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 24, 2008
The major problem undermining all that really brilliant, character-revealing dialogue is the series of “gotcha” plot revelations in the concluding minutes.
Okay, we’ve been here before. The small house at the Hyde Park Theatre wraps around a set that could represent an anonymous, nearly vacant apartment in a half-demolished tenement building. Tom Waits is growling “Dead and Lovely” on the sound system in full derelict mode, followed by some country music phantasmagoria about facing the electric chair. Down-market Harold Pinter, maybe, or Sam Shepard. Danger, barren stage and threat.In Brass Ring, playwright Shanon Weaver of “A …
Review: Voces de Vivo by Teatro Vivo
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 22, 2008
The sense of community at Austin’s Teatro Vivo is tangible. One has a warm, expectant feeling, like the anticipation of attending a school production where one knows many of the actors.
The sense of community at Austin’s Teatro Vivo is tangible and reinforces the appeal of the consort. One has a warm, expectant feeling, much like the anticipation of attending a school production where one knows many of the actors. At a high school or college play, one is additionally disposed to forgive occasional slips or stumbles because one likes the participants so much. Teatro Vivo’s familiar participants don’t require that indulgence. They are credible, creative …
Review: Twelfth Night by Scottish Rite Theater
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 11, 2008
Director (yclept "Master of Play") Beth Burns, just relocatedfrom Los Angeles, achieves a quick-paced, highly entertaining and almost too short evening of entertainment.
Twelfth Night, just opened at the convenient downtown location close to the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum, is a graceful, sprightly production of Shakespeare's comedy of parted twins, mistaken identities, and the merciless mocking of overweening ambition. This is the one in which the dour Malvolio, steward to Lady Olivia, is duped by two roysters into smiling, making love overtures to his lady, and appearing in yellow stockings, all cross gartered. And Viola, shipwrecked, masquerades …