Upcoming: Hair by Rado, Ragni and MacDermot, Texas State University, April 20 - 29

presents

Book and Lyrics by James Rado & Gerome Ragni, Music by Galt MacDermot

Directed by Kaitlin Hopkins, Choreographed by Tom Truss

April 20th – 21st & April 24th – 28th at 7:30 p.m., April 22nd & 29th at 2:00 p.m.

University Mainstage Theatre, 430 Moon St., San Marcos, Texas (click for map)

Tickets $12 general admission and $7 for students with a valid Texas State ID.

For reservations, call the Texas State Box Office at (512) 245-2204.

Tickets will go on sale beginning Monday April 9th at 10:00 a.m.

Box Office hours: April 9- 13, 16-19 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

April 16th – April 19th from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

April 20, 21, 24 - 27 from 10:00 a.m. – 7:30 p.m.

April 22n & 29 from 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

April 23rd from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m.

April 28th from 6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Hair tells the story of a group of friends choosing to speak up and sing out in celebration of love, life and freedom. The first great rock musical, it has some of the most rousing and soulful songs ever written for the stage, including "Let the Sun Shine In," "Easy to be Hard," "Good Morning Starshine," "Aquarius" and the infectious title song, "Hair."

[poster design by Geoffrey Douglas and Sara Lee Cely]

Images by Kimberley Mead: Lear, Vortex Repertory, May 20 - June 18

Images by Kimberley Mead:

presents

Lear

by William Shakespeare in a new adaptation by Rudy Ramirez

starring Jennifer Underwood

directed by Rudy Ramirez

May 20 - June 18

Thursdays - Sundays at 8 p.m.

Vortex Repertory, 2307 Manor Rd. (click for map)

(Jennifer Coy as Regan, Suzanne Balling as Cordelia)

In an age when women hold more power and in a time when the media turns the private into the public a mother divides her empire among her daughters. As her world crumbles and her family turns its back on her, can she face the storm and find love, forgiveness, and peace? A Celtic legend made into a Renaissance masterpiece, The VORTEX now re-imagines William Shakespeare's King Lear as a female leader for the modern world, where globalization blurs the line between governments and corporations and names like Clinton, Palin, Thatcher, Stewart, Wintour, and Winfrey have inspired admiration, contempt and controversy. Jennifer Underwood leads a cast of Austin's finest actors in a story of gender and power, family and business, compassion and betrayal.

Click to view additional images by Kimberley Mead at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Short Take: Lear by Shakespeare, Vortex Repertory, May 20 - June 18

Short take:

The Vortex version of Lear features several accomplished Austin actors, including most notably Jennifer Underwood in the title role, but director Rudy Ramirez trivializes Shakespeare's great epic of royal folly and delusion. Lear's rage against the storm is converted into a confused confrontation with paparazzi, and key narration is projected as sound-bites from MSNBC-style talking heads, proving that style can defeat substance. Cross-gender casting for the roles of Kent and Edda (Edgar) is puzzling; less so for Shannon Grounds as the Fool. Underwood doesn't really get going until the mad scene in Act IV, scene 6. Other standouts in the cast include Micah Goodding as the wily and wicked bastard Edmund, Jen Coy as Regan and Tom Truss as Cornwall. The last third or so of the production -- from the blinding of Gloucester onward -- has impact and conviction.

Upcoming: Lear by WIlliam Shakespeare with Jennifer Underwood, Vortex Repertory, May 20 - June 18

Found on-line:

presents

Lear

by William Shakespeare

starring Jennifer Underwood

directed by Rudy Ramirez

May 20 - June 18

Thursdays - Sundays at 8 p.m.

Vortex Repertory, 2307 Manor Rd. (click for map)

In an age when women hold more power and in a time when the media turns the private into the public a mother divides her empire among her daughters. As her world crumbles and her family turns its back on her, can she face the storm and find love, forgiveness, and peace? A Celtic legend made into a Renaissance masterpiece, The VORTEX now re-imagines William Shakespeare's King Lear as a female leader for the modern world, where globalization blurs the line between governments and corporations and names like Clinton, Palin, Thatcher, Stewart, Wintour, and Winfrey have inspired admiration, contempt and controversy. Jennifer Underwood leads a cast of Austin's finest actors in a story of gender and power, family and business, compassion and betrayal.

Produced by VORTEX Repertory Company. Adapted from Shakespeare and Directed by Rudy Ramirez. Scenic Design by Ann Marie Gordon, Lighting Design by Jason Amato, Video Design by Sergio R. Samayoa, Costume Design by Pam Fletcher Friday. Stage Management by Tamara L. Farley.

Starring Jennifer Underwood as Lear with Suzanne Balling as Cordelia, David Boss as France/Ensemble, Jennifer Coy as Regan, Mick D'arcy as Gloucester, Trey Deason as Oswald, Joseph Garlock as Burgundy/ Ensemble, Micah Goodding as Edmund, Shannon Grounds as The Fool, Chelsea Manasseri as The Doctor/Ensemble, Toby Minor as Albany, Mindy Rast as Curan/Ensemble, Laura Ray as Lear's Gentlewoman/ Ensemble, Andrea Smith as Goneril, Tom Truss as Cornwall, Amelia Turner as Edda, and Julianna Elizabeth Wright as Kent.

VORTEX Repertory Company is funded and supported in part by the City of Austin through the Cultural Arts Division, by the Texas Commission on the Arts, and by a and an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

Upcoming: The Zoo Story by Edward Albee, Joey Hood & Tom Truss, various locations, April 16 - May 22

Found on-line at www.secondhandtheatre.biz:

Click to view choice of locations and dates (near UT, East Austin, South Austin, North Austin, Round Rock)

To reserve tickets online click the e address below

secondhandtheatre.biz@gmail.com or call 512 981 7332

Please include the date and time of the show you want to see and the number of reservations. We will confirm your reservation by email or phone.

Upcoming: The Miners, Secondhand Theatre at Uptown Modern, April 9

Found at www.secondhandtheatre.biz:

(Click for map to Uptown Modern)

re:Psyche, Secondhand Theatre at the Blue Theatre, June 23 - July 18

Secondhand Theatre's re:Psyche, playing at the Blue Theatre until July 18, reminds me of a Swiss circus.

In late spring and summer, medium-sized towns and villages in the Swiss mountains awaken to find a weathered Little Top has appeared on a vacant municipal lot, surrounded by a miscellany of campers and caravans. The troupe rarely numbers more than ten performers, perhaps with three or four musicians. Practised professionals, they are initiates in make-believe, gymnastics and glitter. They stay for a week or ten days, then fold their tent and disappear.

The seven actors in re:Psyche have the same mysterious resilience and commitment. Five of the actors and three of the tech staff established ties in UT's MFA programs for theatre arts, where Re:Psyche began as "an experiment in movement-based ensemble-created work." Jenny Connell's script with chracters from the legend of Psyche, that mortal woman who involuntarily enchanted Eros (Cupid), became an offering at the Mark Cohen New Play Festival in 2009, voted "Best of Fest." UT sponsored an additional staging in 2009, much appreciated.

Now, with further reworking, cast changes and the addition of eerie, effective music by Austin string minimalists Mother Falcon, the troupe has set up its metaphorical tent as Secondhand Theatre, at the Blue Theatre building, that odd patch behind the Goodwill warehouse at 916 Springdale Road.

I suggest that you get over there and take it in before the group disperses. These folks are serious, comic, and seriously entertaining.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Ongoing: re:Psyche, Secondhand Theatre at Blue Theatre, June 23 - July 18

UPDATE: Review by Avimaan Syam for the Austin Chronicle, July 1

UPDATE: Robert Faires' 2000-word feature in the Austin Chronicle on the origins, ensemble work and prospects for Re-Psyche, with interviews of director Marie Brown and actor Tom Truss,June 24

UPDATE from Lisa Scheps of KOOP-FM on her June 21 program "Off Stage and On the Air": "First up were folks from Re:Pysche playing at the Blue Theatre now through July 18th. Who was there? I'll tell you... we had two cast members, Rudy Ramirez and Verity Branco; we had the director, Marie Brown; we had the producer and co-creator, Tom Truss; and we were also joined by the Stage Manager (my old job), Michael Mussey (who did an awsome job playing the track and not being able to hear!!) They did a scene from the show that was Hill-Air-Re-Us!!!"

Received directly:

Second Hand Theater presents

re:Psyche

a mythic love story for the google age conceived and written by Director Marie Brown, Playwright Jenny Connell, Actor Tom Truss & the Ensemble.

Directed by Marie Brown, Music by Mother Falcon

Designed by Sonja Raney and Kevin Beltz, Lighting Design by Eric Lara

June 24 - July 18 Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.

Wednesdays June 23 & July 7 "pay what you can night" special fundraiser -- all proceeds go to the BLUE THEATER

TICKETS: sliding scale $10-$20. Reservations 888-666-1257 or buy them online at: www.secondhandtheater.com

Blue Theater 916 Springdale Road (512) 927-1118

WHY: Because love stories never get old.

Click for more information, images and video at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: rePsyche, Secondhand Theater at the Blue Theatre, June 23 - July 18

Received directly:

Second Hand Theater presents

re:Psyche

a mythic love story for the google age conceived and written by Director Marie Brown, Playwright Jenny Connell, Actor Tom Truss & the Ensemble.

Directed by Marie Brown, Music by Mother Falcon

Designed by Sonja Raney and Kevin Beltz, Lighting Design by Eric Lara

June 24 - July 18 Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.

Wednesdays June 23 & July 7 "pay what you can night" special fundraiser -- all proceeds go to the BLUE THEATER

TICKETS: sliding scale $10-$20. Reservations 888-666-1257 or buy them online at: www.secondhandtheater.com

Blue Theater 916 Springdale Road (512) 927-1118

WHY: Because love stories never get old.

re:PSYCHE is a Greek Myth for the Google Age. Cupid packs a gun, deus ex machinas are less than divine, and love is hard work. Listed as one of the “top nine of ’09” by the Austin Chronicle, re:PSYCHE is a play that uses humor, heightened language and spectacle to raise serious questions about vows, desire, the hard work of love and what it takes to leap.

Click to read more and view images. . . .

Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, Paper Chairs at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, May 28 - June 13

This production of Machinal by Sophie Treadwell, currently playing at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, is a memorable staging of a 1928 shocker -- which in 21st century terms means that it is endearingly two dimensional.

Back in the 1920's,most American theatre art was unexciting, conventional or cast in moral platitudes. At the same time, newspaper reporting of crimes were sensationalistic and very big business. In a time when both radio and cinema were still new,big city newspapers' accounts of accounts of murders and of murder trials sold a lot of papers.

Those days have been memorialized in cinema and in theatre since then. For example, Chicago journalist Maurine Dallas Watkins scored a big hit in the theatre with a thinly fictionalized account of the 1924 exploits of two murderesses, both of whom were acquitted. That 1926 play ran for 171 performances and was the basis for Kander and Ebb's 1975 musical Chicago, featuring the oh-so-innocent but oh-so-guilty Roxy Hart -- a musical revived successfully in New York in 1990 and made into an Academy- award-winning film in 2002.

Journalist SophieTreadwell scored a similar succès de scandale with Machinal, a poetic, expressionistic imagining based on the crime and execution at Sing Sing prison of Ruth Snyder. Treadwell had covered the 1927 murder trial. The state execution of Snyder in January, 1928 was a huge sensation, both because this was New York's first execution of a woman since 1899 and because the New York Daily News published the next day a photo of the execution, taken with a hidden camera strapped to the ankle of one of its journalists.

Machinal opened in New York in fall, 1928, featuring the relatively unknown actor Clark Gable in the pivotal role of a relaxed seducer whose casual attitude (Quien sabe? Who knows what might happen?) eventually opened the way for the Young Woman to undertake murderous action.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Our Town, University of Texas, April 2 - 11

Stage Manager:
I've married over two hundred couples in my day. . . .
M . . . marries N . . . . millions of them.
The cottage, the go-cart, the Sunday afternoon drives in the Ford, the first rheumatism, the grandchildren, the second rheumatism, the deathbed, the reading of the will --
Once in a thousand times it's interesting.
[He now looks at the audience for the first time, with a warm smile that removes any sense of cynicism from the next line.]
Well, let's have Mendelssohn's "Wedding March"!

There's a deceptive simplicity to Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

It is, after all, a play about ordinary people in a small town. Nobodies. Or, rather, Everybodies.

I encountered it early in the second half of the twentieth century because it was included in its entirety in the high school English textbook. For eleventh grade. Maybe twelfth grade. No big words. No controversy. In fact, not much drama. Boy and girl meet, court, marry, look back over their lives and the story ends in a quiet graveyard on a high hill under the wild stars.

Staging something this simple and yet this profound takes a lot of insight. Director Marie Brown has done a lot of things right, the chief of which was the decision to entrust Tom Truss with the role of the stage manager.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

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. . . .

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 . . . .

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.

The Idiot, University of Texas Drama Department, February 27 - March 8

Scott Kanoff's transformation of Dostoyevski's novel gives us a luminous experience, a comedy of manners of the 19th century Russian aristocracy tracked and threatened by deep and pernicious evil.

The Thursday night performance was sold out. The largely undergraduate audience around the wide thrust space of the Brockett Theatre fastened on every word throughout, even though the piece runs a full three hours, including its 15-minute intermission.

Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin is returning to Moscow from Switzerland, where he lived for years in a neurological institute because of epileptic seizures. He is ragged and apparently penniless. In the train he is accosted by Lebedev, a smarmy hustler, and by a stocky, boastful merchant named Rogozhin. Rogozhin has inherited a fortune, but only by a mean stroke of luck -- he was physically struggling with his irate father over the father's threat to disinherit him, when the old man dropped dead of a stroke. Myshkin is a complete innocent. Depraved Rogozhin, his foil, boasts of his passion for the beautiful Nastasya -- who lives in grand style because she is blackmailing her guardian for the years he spent abusing her as a young girl.

Prince Myshkin has no surviving close family, no profession, little knowledge, no social polish, and talent only as a calligrapher -- and as a truth teller. He calls upon General Yepanchin, whose wife, also a Myshkin, is a distant cousin. Despite his early gaucheries, Myshkin inadvertently charms Lizaveta Yepanchin and her two daughters. He is gradually drawn in, both into the social round of the ladies, and into the General's design to bribe his own penniless private secretary Ganya Ivolgin to contract a marriage of convenience with Nastasya, the very blackmailer discussed on Myshkin's train trip home to Moscow.

Director/adapter Kanoff ably renders Dostoyevski's world, one in which shining social artifice is accompanied by the foul muck of bribery, exploitation and pain. Myshkin's incomprehension of evil and of selfishness draw the desperate to him -- the crude, passionate merchant Rogozhin, who insists on exchanging with him the crosses they wear about their necks; the emotive, spoiled Aglaya Yepanchin, the general's elder daughter who uses the emotional equivalent of blackmail to stalk Myshkin for a husband; the menials Lebedev and Ganya Ivolgin, each bent on exploiting Myshkin when he unexpectedly comes into a fortune. And especially, the beautiful blackmailer Nastasya -- whose inner misery hypnotizes Myshkin

There's a lot going on in this piece, which is hardly surprising, considering that it is drawn from a 656-page novel. Karnoff abstracts the essential and tucks it neatly into a theatrical format. His work is made easier by the luminiscent acting of Tom Truss as Myshkin (above). Truss shows us a man who is simple yet exceedingly complex -- a man whose emotions war openly in his face. Many things are happening simultaneously in Truss's performance: self-abnegation, an acute sensitivity to each of the other characters, shambling efforts to conform to the cutting standards of his new acquaintances, simple direct observations and an affecting and other-worldly openness to the poor and the needy. We see every turn of his heart. This is masterful, captivating acting.

Several other performances need to be signalled and especially praised. Harrison Butler as Ganya the sharp-spoken private secretary is caught in an impasse between avarice and dignity; his tottering choice of honor is unexpected and electrifying. Lesley Gurule as Myshkin's cousin Lizaveta (right) is all the matriarch and delivers a crisp performance with much droll self-certainty.

As her headstrong daughter Aglaya (left, with Tom Truss), Kate deBuys is a delight and a spoiled horror all at the same time, effective both as a comedienne and as a distraught, jilted would-be fiancée.


Pierce Purselley, as obsequious and insincere as Uriah Heep, has fine and amusing command of body, face, and mannerisms. La Tasha Stephens shines in two minor roles, as Ganya's humble and humiliated mother and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, as the elaborately social Princess Belekonsky.

Constituting the ultimately fatal love triangle with Prince Myshkin are Smaranda Ciceu as Nastasya the blackmailer and fallen woman, and Michael Sullivan as the brutish Rogozhin. They are decisive in their performances but they come nowhere near Tubbs' subtility. Ciceu is particularly declamatory, without great nuance; Sullivan improves through the course of the piece, but not until the final, terrible scene does he fully assume the fallible face of evil.

As for the sets, costunes and lighting -- how about them Horns? With the vast resources of a 125-person crew list, there's no surprise that each of these elements is highly accomplished. The players had far more set than they needed -- two stories of silhouetted mansion with three staircases, so at times the director had to send someone sauntering that way to justify all that craft. Costumes were fine for the ladies and for Myshkin -- Nastasya's cocky little hat atop a high pile of hair was very dandyish, and Myshkin's tattered old striped wrap said everything one needed to know about his parlous economc circumstances. The echo-reverb effects leading to Myshkin's epileptic spells were perhaps a bit intrusive; the lighting was generally subtle and carefully punched up for highly dramatic moments.

The University of Texas produces theatre of high quality at very reasonable prices, most of which is blissfully consumed by the UT community. The spectator community of wider Austin might respond more strongly if these treasures were more widely publicized.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, UT Department of Theatre, November 14 - 23

UT calls the Oscar G. Brockett Theatre an "intimate space." They are speaking Texas institutional intimacy here -- only 200 seats, arrayed about three sides of a huge square playing space under 40-foot ceiling rigged with lights, catwalks, hoists and other machinery. And with a built-in audience from those 50,000 UT students and 16,500 faculty and staff.

When I arrived, all but breathless, 15 minutes before curtain time, I had to stand in a line of at least 30 persons in order to get one of the last seats. I hurried into the theatre, spotted a vacant seat or two on the far side of the playing space, and started to cut across the floor. That drew gasps and warnings from the crowd.

Hardly an auspicious arrival. I looked down and realized that the production staff had set out on the floor an intricate mosaic of thousands of paper scraps, and I had started to walk across their art. Back I went, abashed, along the sidelines.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is just about everybody's favorite of Shakespeare's light comedies. Director Paul Mullins, in his sound bite with KUT FM, speaks about the challenge of that -- half the audience will know the play extremely well and the other half will have no idea of the plot.

Advice for that second half of the audience: the stories are simple, the characters are easy to track, the comedy is broad and the magical convergence of the three worlds is satisfying. There's no real desperation here -- except for the set-up, in which the full-of-himself father, Egeus, demands that Duke Theseus allow him to put to death his child the fair Hermia if she refuses to accept as her husband the noble youth Demetrius.

Oh, Dad! Get a grip. Your Hermia is in love with Lysander, and your insistence is going to drive them both to elope, at night, via the enchanted forest where all those fairies hang out! And when Demetrius goes searching for her, he'll be followed by Helena, that ugly duckling who's in love with him.

Equally quarrelsome are fairy king Oberon and the fairy queen Titania. He commands his magic messenger Puck, known as Robin Goodfellow; she is attended by a swarm of lesser fairies.

And in this, the third corner, are the (original) rude mechanicals, the untutored group of skilled laborers who have decided to practice and put on a play to celebrate the Duke's wedding with Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons.

Lovers + Fairies + Rude Mechanicals = lots of quarreling, clowning, enchantments, love potions, and eventually a happy ending.

The action flowed smoothly and in spectacular fashion. The UT technical staff really knows its stuff -- costumes and makeup are superb, particularly for the magical beings, and the director and tech folks devised a sort of rolling scaffold that served variously as palace stairs, enchanted hillside, and fairy waystation. Fairy King Oberon and his minister Puck repeatedly flew down to us from the darkness above the catwalks. Abstract plastic draping behind the players transformed shape according to venue. The stage lighting, with rank on rank of gel-clad fresnels, floods, and spots, could nail our attention at will to any point in that wide, high space.

As action unfolds, that paper mosaic spread on the floor is gradually dispersed, converting our Athenian palace appropriately into a leaf-strewn forest at night.

We all had a good time. The actors were confident and funny, and the scrambles through the enchanted forest provided much laughter.

By far the most accomplished (accomplishéd?) in Shakespearean diction were the principals of the magic world. Tom Truss as fairy king Oberon, Kate deBuys as Titania his queen, and Shaun Patrick Tubbs (left) as Puck have the physical presence and assurance of gymnists or dancers, and in their fairy guise they're all very good looking. And they all knew how to wrap their mouths around Shakespeare's lines, to deliver meaning, character and poetry.

Their only equal in that regard was Xochitl Romero (right) as the fair eloper, Hermia. Romero, as Hermia, is angered, excited, eloping, prudish, abandoned, distraught, elated but then bewildered, finally triumphant, and then captivated by the actions of the play of the rude mechs. The action of the play turns upon Hermia, and Romero keeps her believable and fresh at every point in the progression.

Director Paul Mullins chose a cast entirely of actresses to portray the artisans -- Nick Bottom the weaver, Peter Quince, and the others who clownishly elaborate the play about tragic lovers of legend Pyramis and Thisbe.

It's hard to imagine that there might be a shortage of males to take those parts. Mullins may have found the big, jovial La Tasha Stephens (left) so much larger than life that he decided to cast her as Bottom and to build around her. She was highly successful with the audience, giving the hearty, bossy, prating Bottom a kind of "Big Momma" treatment.

A thought experiment -- what if Mullins had instead cast her as Puck and Shaun Patrick Tubbs as Bottom? That might have stretched each of them.
There's a silliness in some of the directing that seems to be aimed directly at amusing a relatively young audience. Lysander's come-on to Hermia when they sleep in the woods was a smirking frat boy's approach to a hot date. And when the four lovers quarrel -- both men are magically entranced by plain-Jane Helena and scornful of the fair Hermia -- do we really need to have them all spitefully pulling off one another's clothing? Mind you, they are all beautiful in their underwear, and there's a funny moment when they're discovered asleep in a pile by Duke Theseus, the ultimate R.A.

A special recognition, accompanied by a carnation, to Verity Branco (right) in her tiny role as Snug, the mechanical picked to play the Lion. Branco is really, really funny and really, really guilelessly attentive, every moment that she's onstage in that character.

Both halves of the audience were well entertained. And anyone else who makes the trip to 23rd and San Jacinto can have the same satisfactions!

Review in the Daily Texan by Aboubacar N'Diaye, November 19