Madelyn Geyer - Page 2

The City Theatre's production of PARALLEL LIVES eschews elaborate sets, costumes, and production design in favor of highlighting its varied characters and the stories they bring to life. Sadly, the show suffers from a lack of dynamic entertainment value and holds a run time that will have you checking your watch surprised that it's not over yet.

What do clownish costumes and biblical parables have in common? Subversive Broadway staple, GODSPELL of course! Austin's Trinity Street Players take on the classic Stephen Schwartz and John-Michael Tebelak rock musical with an effervescent production fitting for Easter weekend.

St. Edward's University's choice for their spring musical is aptly named. While the words 'spring awakening' invoke images of beautiful flowers or a warm spring day, this musical contains everything but, with central themes of sexuality, religion, abuse, suicide, guilt and repression. I'll be blunt: go see this production. The cast of St. Edwards University blesses the audience with their talent, capturing the heartbreak, hope, and surprising humor that's integral to SPRING AWAKENING, based on the 1891 German play of the same name by Frank Wedekind.

John Lowell's THE LETTERS, in its regional premiere courtesy of Street Corner Arts, is a two person, one act play. It begins in one place, takes us on a journey, and ends up in a place unrecognizable from where it started, all without leaving one governmental archives office in 1930s Stalinist Russia. Through one seventy-five minute long interaction, Lowell's dialogue and Michael Stuart's direction captures the utter paranoia and perpetual fear felt by citizens and leaders alike living in the Soviet Regime.

Like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, ANTIGONICK reveals the fate of the characters immediately. ANTIGONICK is award winning poet and Classics professor Anne Carson's reinterpretation of Sophocles' Antigone, part three in his famous Theban plays. Antigone continues the story of eye-gouging tragedy Oedipus Rex, perhaps the most well-known in the Theben plays. Carson's deep knowledge of ancient Greek literature, culture, and history makes her the ideal person to translate and reimagine Sophocles' revered work. She gives the story modernity but holds fast to its universal and still relevant themes of tragedy, grief, and fate. Director Diana Small of Salvage Vanguard Theater puts an experimental spin on Carson's play to make for a truly unique theatrical experience in ANTIGONICK.

'This is a story of kings.' The opening line of playwright Ayad Akhtar's JUNK gives the audience an epic summary of what they're about to experience. Kings not determined by the biggest crown or most expansive army, but by the fullest pockets. Robert Merkin, played by Carlo Lorenzo Garcia, is one such king, though unconventional in that the lead character of Akhtar's longest work sees debt as an asset. Robert sits proudly on the cover Time Magazine, and he's ready to capitalize on his role as 'America's Alchemist'. Performer Garcia revels in all the teeth sucking, furtive gesticulating, and slick talking of a classic 1980's Wall Street yuppie.

JANE EYRE, THE MUSICAL began workshops in 1995 before moving to the La Jolla Playhouse in 1999 for pre-Broadway try-out performances. The musical premiered on Broadway in December of 2000 and closed in June of 2001, scoring 5 Tony Award nominations along the way. And deservedly so. Paul Gordon's elegant music and moving lyrics reveal the simmering passions and inner struggles the main characters face. 

MacTheatre's production of 42ND STREET exudes pure Broadway bliss from the moment a massive line of energetic tap dancers greets the audience from behind a rising curtain. Come along and listen to the lullaby of Broadway…only it won't lull you to sleep.