Recent Reviews
Review: From Inferno to Americana by Ty Graynor
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 26, 2023
Ty Graynor's dance pieces INFERNO and AMERICANA contained worlds of technique and meaning, executed masterfully by the solo choreographer and by the ensemble.
A figure lies in darkness upon a stage. He is nearly nude, clothed only in his humanity. Although fixed in stillness, the figure seems to writhe in deep, interior struggle. Light fades up on the dancer, Everyman, in painful efforts to rise. He advances slowly upward in levels but struggle never ceases. We begin to recognize movements characteristic of modern/contemporary dance, but soon disciplined structures and movement tropes of modern ballet appear. The floorwork …
Review: The Book of Mormon by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on November 23, 2023
THE BOOK OF MORMON, a phenomenon of Broadway 2.0, provokes controversy and inspires thoughtful dialogue, as good art should.
The Book of Mormon, a ground-breaking musical comedy with music, lyrics, and book by Trey Parker, Robert Lopez, and Matt Stone, premiered on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on March 24, 2011, and it is still very much a hot ticket over two decades later. The show is the brainchild of the creators of the notoriously raunchy tv series South Park, so it is reasonable to expect it will have a similar tone—but …
Translator's Notes: Austin Shakespeare's EL CID by Pierre Corneille, November 10 - 26, 2023
by Michael Meigs
Published on November 22, 2023
Sitting in the audience, the translator was enchanted, deeply immersed in the characters, hypnotized that his own words were about to be spoken, and grateful to Austin Shakespeare for the opportunity.
Ann Ciccolella’s mid-August email to me, a casual inquiry about a play script, was the beginning of a translation experience as unexpected as it was spellbinding. Her plan was for Austin Shakespeare to produce a translation of Pierre Corneille’s classic romantic drama Le Cid, written in 1636, an oeuvre still held in such reverence by the French that it’s still taught to middle schoolers. Our daughter, obliged to study it at that age, …
Review: El Cid by Austin Shakespeare, November 10 - 26, 2023
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 13, 2023
Austin Shakespeare's EL CID provides a super-good sword flight and intense moral conflicts expressed in blank verse both in English and Spanish, performed by a hardworking cast on a starkly bare stage.
Austin Shakespeare has just premiered a new translation of Pierre Corneille’s Le Cid at the Rollins Studio Theatre at the Long Center. Its lengthy production period heightened the theatre community’s anticipation. Austin Shakespeare’s El Cid gives us a certain innovation in language. The play, written in French, premiered in Paris in 1636. This modern translation is a bilingual English/Spanish version. The translation is by Michael Meigs, who has long advocated for more balanced contributions by …
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Two CTXLT Reviews: DEATHTRAP by Ira Levine, Jarrott Productions
by David Glen Robinson
Published on November 08, 2023
Playwright Ira Levin displays his hubris by mocking his own cliché-loaded genre in approved Ivy League haute-snobbery while still entertaining and frightening audiences.
Death Trap is well-regarded as a model murder/thriller potboiler with plot twists and reversals presented to the audience at every peak of its impressive dramatic action. Of great enjoyment is the fact that in all the excitement, the play takes its time. Contrast that pacing to stand-up comedy's effort to deliver a punchline every six seconds. Still, the stage is strewn with many bodies after just two and a half hours playing time. What’s less …
Review: Antigone (David Rush) by Filigree Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on October 26, 2023
In Filigree Theatre's accomplished staging, the adversity and mutual destruction of Antigone and dictator Creon are entirely human. The gods are silent. As they are in our own day.
The choices are stark and the interests are opposed. As they were then, are now, and ever will be. Playwright/adapter David Rush thoroughly scrubs Sophocles's Antigone, like a museum curator carefully restoring a find from an archeological dig, rendering it from an odd antiquity into a darkly glowing relevant contemporary challenge. Director Elizabeth V. Newman, her cast, and the design team embraced the ritual nature of Greek drama with an almost liturgical staging. …