Ongoing: Bug, Capital T Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, May 27 - June 19

UPDATE: Review by Ryan E. Johnson at examiner.com, June 2

UPDATE: Review by Clare Croft for the Statesman's Austin360 "Seeing Things" blog, May 29

UPDATE: Feature by Jeanne Claire van Ryzin at the Statesman's Arts360 "Seeing Things" blog, May 26

Found on-line:

Capital T presents

Bug

by Tracy Letts
Directed by Mark Pickell
Starring Kenneth Wayne Bradley, Katie deBuys, Joey Hood, Melissa Recalde, and Joe Reynolds

May 27 – June 19
Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W 43rd St

Tickets are $15-$25 (sliding scale) and can be reserved by calling 479-PLAY or visiting www.capitalT.org

Insects bite, feed, and swarm in BUG, Tracy Letts' thrilling followup to KILLER JOE. BUG centers on Agnes (Katie deBuys), a lonely, middle-aged waitress victimized by her abusive ex-husband (Ken Bradley), and tortured by the kidnapping of her child in a supermarket almost ten years ago. After spiraling into a world of alcohol, cocaine, and seedy motel rooms, Peter (Joey Hood) a timid Gulf War veteran and drifter in search of a friend wanders into her life. As their interest in each other grows, so does their paranoid obsession with understanding what –or who – brought them together. Did we mention the infestation of bugs?

Warning: contains nudity, cigarette smoke, violence, and adult situations.

Running time 2 hours with one 15 minute intermission

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . .

Killer Joe, Capital T Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, June 4 - 27, July 23 - August 8

UPDATE:Back on stage July 23- August 8, Thursdays - Saturdays, 8 p.m.





I knew that this one was going to scare us to death. I didn't get there early in the run but I saw that the reviews were popping up in the media and on line.

My rule is not to read the reviews until after I've seen the production and written about it. My ticket was for last Thursday night.

Thursdays are often down-time for Austin theatre, but this show was packing 'em in. There's no standing room in the pinched quarters of the Hyde Park Theatre, so the staff might have been turning some folks away. Something was going on here, for sure.

Killer Joe.

I admired the production but I despised the script.

There's a perpetual tension in theatre programming between those who want theatre to keep people happy and those who want theatre to make people think. Hyde Park Theatre programming is typically 'way over to the "make 'em think" side of the scale. The needle bumps up from time to time to the region figuratively inscribed with the French slogan "épater les bourgeois," translated approximately as "scandalize the conventional citizens." Or, more crudely, "Knock their socks off!"

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .