Recent Reviews
Review: Immortal Longings by Zach Theatre
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on June 24, 2019
Steven Epp's Diaghilev is unrelenting, explosive, and -- one imagines -- exhausting. He embodies the grace of a ballet instructor with a mischievous streak that enlivens his performance.
Terrence McNally was born in the 1930s and has had a distinguished career spanning multiple decades, which include four Tony Awards, an Emmy Award, four Drama Desk Awards, and two Obie Awards, only to mention a few. It is no surprise he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in the 90's, and yet he's still producing great work. McNally is famedfor his plays and librettos including Love! Valour! Compassion!, Master Class, Kiss …
Review: Rally by Andrea Ariel Dance Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 22, 2019
In RALLY the conversion of movement and music into Soundpainting by Andrea Ariel and the company was an immensely generous community approach to performing art.
What does the word “rally” mean to you? My ideas run heavily to baseball teams who go on scoring frenzies when trailing on the scoreboard, as teammates in the dugout wear their ball caps inside out. I thought I was solid with the concept when I attended a show of the same name at the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center off Rainey Street. Four powerful, athletic dancers entered the stage one by one …
Review: The Book of Will by Austin Playhouse
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 21, 2019
Stephen Mercantel as shy, neurotic copyist Ralph Crane performs with aroused intensity, while other cool kids onstage played so broadly one half expected conspiratorial winks to the audience.
Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will at the Austin Playhouse is a lot of fun, and it doesn't intend to be anything else. It's a players' play, patterned on history, not particularly deep, but with the predictable happy ending -- the printing and sale of the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare's plays, seven years after his death. The great Will is mostly absent from the narrative and dialogue, except when pirated poor editions are quoted. …
Review #2 of 2: Iolanthe by Gilbert & Sullivan Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on June 19, 2019
The combination of deadly serious high quality production and fairy-dusted, droll English high jinks, time-warped out of the nineteenth century, becomes a welcome flowery late spring, gradually turning into a crisped, sultry summer..
The people of Gilbert & Sullivan Austin take their G&S very seriously. So it may seem surprising that GSA would present Iolanthe (eye-oh-LAN-thee), the acme of silliness and illogic, as the peak of their season. But after attending the performance, one finds, curiously, that the combination of deadly serious high quality production and fairy-dusted, droll English high jinks, time-warped out of the nineteenth century, becomes a welcome antidote to a crowded Austin theatre season and …
Review #1 of 2: Iolanthe by Gilbert & Sullivan Austin, June 13 - 23, 2019
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on June 17, 2019
Whether you're a veteran or a newcomer to the work of Gilbert and Sullivan, you won't find a better or more accurate production of their IOLANTHE in central Texas.
Iolanthe, pronounced "I Oh Lon Thee," is a comic opera by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan about the trials and tribulations of Strephon (who is half fairy and half mortal), his mother the fairy Iolanthe (who has been banned from fairyland for marrying a mortal), and Phyllis, the girl he loves. It is one of fourteen operettas for which Arthur Sullivan wrote the music and his creative partner W. S. Gilbert wrote the libretto. The …
Review: This is Our Youth by Treehouse Players
by Michael Meigs
Published on June 08, 2019
There's an impressive physicality to THIS IS OUR YOUTH -- the men push one another around and throw things, while the young couple Warren and Jessica have a tentative, mutually frightened attraction that's beautifully played.
David Allan Barrera and his Treehouse Players colleagues probably didn't intend it, but their inaugural production offers an ironic riff on the company name. This Is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan takes place entirely in a shabby apartment on the Upper West Side. It's a den and a refuge for twenty-one-year-old Dennis, paid for by his famous artist father, probably to get the kid out of his life. If this were a treehouse, Sam Domino …