Recent Reviews
Review: Sweat by Southwest Theatre Productions
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 30, 2019
Americans, even blue-collar workers have always been relatively more mobile than citizens of many other nations, but when the factory closes, your life has been laid down in a deep groove, and your people are around you, what are you going to do?
Southwest Theatre Productions in Austin has staged a dozen contemporary American dramas since its inception in 2015. Maybe you hadn't noticed? The company is itinerant though not homeless, for they're inhabiting a very specific field of the art. SWTP looks for scripts, preferably recent ones, that use realistic styling to examine closely the flaws and frustrations of contemporary society. The company has shown a special sensibility for outsiders, the disadvantaged, people of color, and women. …
Review #1 of 2: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH by Zach Theatre
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 29, 2019
A cycle of three songs by Hedwig is a most beautiful battering of the audience’s psyche. It's unmistakably puissant, powerful, and gratifyingly self-indulgent. The story of Hedwig is a modern-day fable that deserves retelling as Zach Theatre has done.
Inside all that fabulousness there is so much pain. During The Long Grift, Hedwig tries and tries to finish the opening when s/he senses a breakdown. S/he throws out some banter and attempts to restart the song, but it is not to be. S/he storms off stage and becomes a quiet rainstorm in the distance. The audience is subdued, but only momentarily, since Leslie McDonel as Yitzhak steps to the microphone and fills the space, …
Review #2 of 2: HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH by Zach Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 29, 2019
Director Dave Steakey and star Daniel Rowan prove that Hedwig, already larger than life back in 2002, can be scaled up to a needy, appealing, viciously funny and achingly vulnerable monster who towers over Zach Theatre's Karen Kuykendall stage like King Kong in a tanga and high heels.
Hedwig is twenty years older now than when s/he first came out on American stages, but in the magic bubble of theatre s/he hasn't aged a day. Director Dave Steakley put on an Austin version of the 1998 Broadway musical in 2002, at just about the same time the movie version premiered, and it played in the snug Whisenhut theatre in the round for months. In his Austin Chronicle review Wayne Alan Brenner enthused over …
Review #2 of 2: Heartland by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on January 28, 2019
In the tradition of the best modern plays, HEARTLAND also tells several stories at the same time, tracks up-to-the-minute, and shows great heart. This latter quality is sure to make it evergreen.
Heartland, an important new play by Gabriel Jason Dean, is now up at the Vortex. The longish, heavily scripted work takes on geopolitics, especially the alt-tidal forces sweeping back and forth across Afghanistan and the United States. In the tradition of the best modern plays, Heartland also tells several stories at the same time, tracks up-to-the-minute, and shows great heart. This latter quality is sure to make it evergreen, some day to enter the canon. …
Review #1 of 2: Heartland by Vortex Repertory Theatre
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 28, 2019
HEARTLAND is so exquisitely written, directed and acted that it's likely to sweep Austin theatre awards. See it, and give in to an evening that will take you out of yourself and into a better place.
Heartland is a small miracle of a play. Playwright Gabriel Jason Dean, aided by director Rudy Ramirez, reconciles the ache of loss by drawing a quiet, warm portrait of a chaste love affair in the impossible circumstances of Afghanistan and evoking those memories for us in the home of an ill and grieving father. They're memories of Getee, a U.S. citizen teacher murdered by the Taliban, and they belong to Nazrullah, a fellow teacher, and …
Review: Waitress by touring company
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on January 24, 2019
Christine Dwyer, as our titular waitress Jenna, has a goose-bump-inducing voice and an onstage aplomb that was neither over-bearing or restrained. It would be silly to say she stole the show, when she actually WAS the show.
“Sugar. Butter. Flour” These three words begin the show and are a common refrain through out the next two acts. It’s a simple and sweet refrain for a simple but not always sweet story. Our titular waitress learns in the first scene that she is expecting and must quickly re-evaluate her life -- but then again not really, because the truth is she has long known what she wants and, perhaps more tellingly, that what …