Bug by Tracy Letts, Capital T Theatre at Hyde Park Theatre, May 27 - June 26

Tracy Letts is hard to take. Any playwright is something of a god, sitting before that first blank page with the power to create and mold character and situation. Letts gives us the polarization of that Genesis -- evidently fascinated by the dark and the desperate, he crafts characters beaten down by one another, trapped in poverty, deprived of education and understanding, aching for meaning. He endows them with life, vivid relations and back stories

His Killer Joe, done here last year by essentially the same company of actors, was a powerful but despicable work resembling a vicious dogfight among human beings.

Bug is a different voyage from roughly the same origins. Director Mark Pickell and the cast set the rhythms, the characters, the relationships in the first half as if they were knowledgeable deepsea anglers hooking the great fish of the audience. In the second half they play us with determined cruelty and we have no choice but to follow. Bug reveals itself in Act II to be a trip into paranoia, fantasy and psychosis.

Read more and view additional images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

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 . . .

Upcoming: Desire Caught By The Tail by Pablo Picasso, staged reading by Listrunk at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, March 11

Found on-line:

LISTRUNK,
a brand spankin' new collective of visual and performing artists, invites you to digest our first public offering: a salon reading of Pablo Picasso's stage play

Desire Caught by the Tail

complete with Picasso-inspired illustrations, a talk about Picasso's life in Paris during World War II, and refreshments.

MARCH 11 at 8:30 p.m.
Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 2803 Manor Road, Austin
$5 suggested donation
Call 409-365-7306 for reservations and pay at the door.

Directed by Meghan Adriel Dwyer
Illustration by Todd Mein
Featuring Zeb West, Michael Ferstenfeld, Melissa Recalde, Briana McKeague, Jorge Sermini, Kelli Bland, Cassidy Risien, Steven Shirey, Courtney Outlaw and Walter Young

Pride and Prejudice, University of Texas, November 13 - 22

Pride and Prejudice at UT's B. Iden Payne Theatre is a beautiful, graceful production. This is a musical text, and not only because of the jigs and reels at the balls sponsored by cheerful Mr. Bingley. Jane Austen's familiar novel about impoverished young ladies and their ultimately successful romances is written largely in dialogue, with cadence, understatement, wit, parry and riposte, quite as if it were a verbal score.

No wonder it has been so successfully translated to the cinema, again and again, and no wonder all 495 seats in the theatre appeared to be filled on opening night. James Maxwell's adaptation gives us much of that familiar dialogue verbatim and all the familar characters.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Pride and Prejudice, University of Texas, November 13 - 22

UPDATE: Korri Kezar's pre-opening feature on Pride and Prejudice in the Daily Texan, November 12

Found on-line:

The surprise of love . . .
The University of Texas Department of Theatre and Dance
presents
Jane Austen's classic novel adapted for the stage

Pride and Prejudice

November 13 – 22, 2009
at the B. Iden Payne Theatre.

James Maxwell adapts Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's timeless novel, originally published in 1813. The highly plot-driven comedy of manners set in 1811 centers on the Bennet family, a comfortable, but not excessively wealthy family living in the countryside of England. As the Bennets have five daughters and no sons, Mrs. Bennet's main objective in life is to find (wealthy) husbands for her daughters and retain Longbourn, the family estate, in the Bennet name. When Jane, the eldest daughter, falls in love with a wealthy landowner named Charles Bingle, Mrs. Bennet believes her problems solved. Bingly's snobbish family and his close friend and acquaintance Fitzwilliam Darcy have other ideas.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Brought Back: Killer Joe, Capital T at Hyde Park Theatre, July 23 - August 8

Received directly:

Capital T presents
the Austin Premiere EXTENDED RUN of

Killer Joe
by Tracy Letts
Directed by Mark Pickell
July 23-August 8
Thursday-Saturday at 8pm
Hyde Park Theatre
511 W 43rd St. Autsin, Texas 78751
Tickets $15-$25 (Sliding Scale)
www.capitalT.org or 479-PLAY


After a Sold out 4 week run Killer Joe is back with the same amazing script and the same killer cast that thrilled audiences at Hyde Park Theatre in June. This ain't 'Greater Tuna'-- Killer Joe is not coming back. You have 9 more chances to see what Austin critics have been raving about.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Rooms, Secondhand Theatre at Uptown Modern, June 7 - 21

Rooms was an unexpected opportunity to inhabit Chekhov's The Three Sisters for a short time on Sunday evenings in June. The announcement -- more of an invitation, really -- was to visit the Prozorov family at their estate, between Acts II and III of The Three Sisters.

This piece may have originated as exercises for the MFA program at the University of Texas. We have seen each of these six vibrant actors elsewhere in town, both in UT productions and elsewhere, including at the Zach Scott and Hyde Park theatres.

You may have had the advantage of seeing St. Ed's production last fall at the Mary Moody Northern Theatre or you may know the play directly. The three sisters of the title are stranded at their provincial estate, yearning to return to Moscow, where they were raised. That hope is diminishing, for their father the General died a year earlier. Their only entertainment is socializing with the gallant men of the artillery regiment stationed for some indefinite time in the town.

Much happens in Chekhov's play, but Rooms takes only the first half as a given.

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 . . . .

Upcoming: Rooms: A Reimagining of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters," Secondhand Theatre, June 7, 14 and 21

UPDATE: Click for ALT review of June 28

Received on June 1:

Rooms
A Reimagining of Chekhov's The Three Sisters

Brought to life by the Secondhand Theatre, a company of six MFA actors from the University of Texas, are the previously unwritten moments between Acts II and III of Anton Chekhov's The Three Sisters.

This site-specific piece invites the audience into the Prozorov's house and casts them as guests of the family. Taken from room to room amidst a home marked for sale, they bear witness to the most private scenes of sexual tension, blood, and tears from a family torn by duty and repression.

The cast of Rooms includes Marlane Barnes, Smaranda Ciceu, Kate deBuys, Lesley Gurule, Melissa Recalde, and Tom Truss.

For a limited engagement, previewing June 7th at 8:00 p.m. with additional peformances on the 14th and 21st.

Located at Uptown Modern, 5453 Burnet Road, Austin, in the Courtyard Shops.
Call 512-452-1200 for reservations, as capacity is limited. Code word: "Olga."
Suggested ticket price on a sliding scale: $5, $10 and $20.

Email secondhandtheatre@gmail.com with additional inquiries.

For more info about Uptown Modern, visit http://www.uptownmodernaustin.com.

Upcoming: 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.

Click to read ALT review, June 22



Received May 8:

Capital T presents the Austin premiere of

Killer Joe

by Tracy Letts
Directed by Mark Pickell
June 4th-27th Thursday-Saturday at 8pm
Hyde Park Theatre 511 W 43rd St. Austin, Texas 78751
Tickets $15-$25 (Sliding Scale)
www.capitalT.org or 479-PLAY
running time: 2 hours with one 15 minute intermission

Heads roll, shatter and blow in KILLER JOE, the savagely funny, pitch-dark comedy by Pulitzer Prize Winning playwright Tracy Letts (AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY).

The play focuses on the Smith family, a greedy, vindictive clan of trailer-trash Texans who hatch a plan to murder their estranged, naggy, alcoholic matriarch to cash in on her insurance policy. Unable to bring themselves to do the deed, they hire Killer Joe Cooper (Ken Bradley), a full-time cop and part-time contract killer. Once he steps into their trailer, their simple plan quickly spirals out of control.

Killer Joe has a killer cast including multiple B Iden Payne and Austin Critics Table Nominees and Winners Ken Bradley and Joey Hood as well as the talented chops of Katie DeBuys, Melissa Recalde, and Joe Reynolds. The mix of these great actors and this dark script could be volatile.

Warning: Killer Joe contains nudity, cigarette smoke, gunshots, violence, and adult situations

Read More at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

The Bird and The Bee, Capital T Theatre at the Blue Theatre, January 21, 25, 28, 30

Two worlds converge to dark uncertainty. These linked plays are completely different in style but taken together, they resonate and provide tremendous opportunity for gifted actors.

Matt Hartley wrote The Bee with a satirical pen as broad as a paintbrush. High school sweetie Chloé (Tayler Gill, left, below) is devastated when her older brother Luke dies in a traffic accident. His dramatic end provides a point of excitement and assembly for the rest of his high school class, particularly for bubble headed Hannah (Melissa Recalde, right).

Candlelight vigils, a dedicated website, Hannah's efforts to scoop some of that admiration and kumbaya feeling for herself . . . the focus is not on the dead boy but on his acquaintances' exploitation of his death. Melissa Recalde plays her breathy self-dramatizing character to the outer edges of parody, a director's decision that strengthens our sympathy for the relatively contained and nondescript Chloé.

This being the 21st century, Chloé takes refuge on the Internet, initially at the memorial website for Luke. Unable to talk to family or friends face-to-face, she opens up in on-line chat to someone named "Jacob" (Chase Wooldridge).

We hear only Chloé's side of the dialogue. Wooldridge hovers spook-like, unseen, next to her on stage as, gradually, she imagines an escape from her troubles. She beams as she puts together a suicide package and prepares to meet Jacob in a hidden grotto in the woods.

Lights out. Chloé's world is extinguished, both literally and symbolically.

Chase Wooldridge immediately opens The Bird by Al Smith, an almost-solo tour de force. The silent "Jacob" reveals himself in a driving Russian-accented monologue to be Jakob Mamontov, a man in his late teens or early twenties. Wooldridge paces with the energy of a caged animal, addressing a figure huddled under a blanket, remembering and recounting his life, driven by stresses that we do not initially understand. He gathers fury gradually and inexorably as he reveals himself and his past. Wooldridge's intensity, modulation and control of this evolution are gripping.

Isolated in an attic as an infant, wrapped with his Russian mother in a hot, lonely embrace over the years, Jacob is completely asocial and untutored. She reluctantly allows him to attend school, dressing him in girl's clothing. Jacob the feral child can't speak English. The other children, in their own social bubbles, ignore him. A teacher's distracted explanation and illustration of geometry strikes Jacob like a thunderbolt. Indifferent and without surprise, the teacher sets him straight, provides him with appropriate clothing and the opportunity to learn.

Growing awareness poisons Jakob. He gradually understands the source of his mother's paranoias, the extent of her sacrifices for him, and the brutality she endures from clients -- hurried, anonymous, and uncaring men who thrust themselves upon her. Melissa Recalde as Jakob's mother Eva Mamontov is a bewildered martyr, mostly silent, except for the sharp moan of pain that escapes her as visitors take their pleasure.

Trying to save Eva, Jacob blackmails a transport official into giving him a job as a cleaner. Meagre wages are not enough to break their slavery. Eva falls ill. Late at night at the traffic authority Jacob begins to meddle with the computers, as revenge for the indifference surrounding them. He finds the high school's website in memory of Luke, contacts and courts the unseen Chloé and eventually, desperate, comes to ask Eva what to do. His world is collapsing.

The glossy program for these pieces includes an interview with playwright Al Smith and background about the stir they caused at the 2008 Edinburgh festival. Smith and Hartley were motivated to undertake the joint project in part by a rash of suicides by young persons in a small county in Wales, a total of 24 deaths in 2007 and 2008 that appear to have been related to social networking sites.

The tacit thesis is that the anonymity of cyber-contact intensifies the anomie of the individual. A well-off schoolgirl is ready to rid herself of the world and an intelligent, emotionally deprived man-child is drawn to feed on her emotions. Horrific things have happened to each of them, and the playwrights leave us only to imagine the outcome of their eventual meeting in the grotto.

The twin plots replicate the nightmares of any parents. The irony is that Chloé's parents are so fixated on a dead son that they fail to read the intentions of the daughter who remains, while Eva, with nothing, has sacrificed everything for her son.

The decor is stark -- piles of large cardboard boxes represent the cave in The Bee and the claustrophobic attic in The Bird. The company plays these pieces essentially on a bare stage, and they're all the more powerful for that.

Joey Seiler's review of The Bird and The Bee for the Statesman's Austin360 arts blog, January 26

Emily Macrander's review in the Daily Texan, with comments from director Kelli Bland, January 27

Ryan E. Johnson's review on Austin.com, January 30