Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2009 > September > 20
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Two kinds of plays on Longhorns game day
Austin streets fairly vibrate on big game days. As early 9 a.m., locals and visitors were out and about. They perked up sidewalks downtown and destination districts like SoCo. While burnt orange peeked out from here and there, it was a feeling not reserved exclusively for Longhorns fanatics.
I was not headed to the sold-out game during any of my Sunday walks. I saw, instead, two bracing theatrical productions. Meanwhile, I TiVo-ed the game and, luckily, avoided any leaky news about the score. (No social media, for instance.)
Attendance was light at Penfold Theatre Company’s “Three Days of Rain” at the Hideout and St. Ed’s “bobrauschenbergamerica” at the Mary Moody Northen Theatre. Too bad. Both proved special treats. I’ve met both playwrights, Richard Greenberg and Chuck Mee, respectively. Interestingly, each piece deals with an iconic, creative and sometimes controversial American of the late 20th Century.
The first play is a witty psychological mystery/drama about a Philip Johnson-like architect, his business partner and his wife, and, in Act 1, their three offspring. Three superb actors play both generations.
Regarding Penfold, its three founders hope to build a theater in the under-served northern sectors of our metropolis, perhaps in Round Rock. It would be Austin’s loss. Their three micro-productions so far, “Art,” “The Last Five Years” and now “Three Days of Rain” have demonstrated extraordinary skill. (I missed “Art,” but heard nothing but praise from some pretty tough customers.)
St. Ed’s artistic director, David M. Long, took a big risk with the associative, counter-narrative “bobrauschenbergamerica.” Long, his team and the audience were rewarded with a performance as big-hearted and imaginative as the Texas artist who inspired them.
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Austin Symphony Season Opener at the Long Center
The Austin Symphony Orchestra is now comfortably settled in the Long Center for the Performing Arts, an ideal setting for its musical strengths …
Michele and Seth Kraal
And, until recently, the organization enjoyed a period of unprecedented stability, harmony and growth, onstage and off …
Lisa Tsang and Kate Hartgrove
Then, as arts reporter Jeanne Claire van Ryzin has reported crisply and delicately, ASO’s players, admirers, staff and board members were riven by the sudden, unexplained departure of promising executive director Galen Wixson …
Cassie and Dominic Bentley
With that social static in the background, the symphony opened its 99th season to an alert audience, pairing Mozart with Ravel, and at one point, Leon and Katherine Jacobson Fleisher playing on matched pianos …
Sharlene Strawbridge and Ruth Ann Eledge
My social/aesthetic complaint is far more mundane than questioning the orchestra’s erratic leadership — first Wixson is the Second Coming, then he leaves for “creative differences.”
What’s with the warehouse-style pallets used for risers in the cello section on Friday? A startlingly lighter color than anything else on stage, they distracted all through the filigreed Mozart and exotic Ravel.
Arius Holifield and Sally Strafford
Where are Wayne Bell, Stan Haas and Marla Bommarito-Crouch when you need a disciplined visual sensibility?
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