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Texas Biennial
February 7, 2012
Review: Austin Shakespeare's 'Arcadia'
“Highbrow” and “romantic comedy” are not typically adjectival bedfellows. In fact, they’re not often used in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence. Yet both terms could comfortably be used to describe Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” playing now through Feb. 19 at the Long Center and produced by Austin Shakespeare.
“Arcadia” is British playwright Tom Stoppard’s fast-paced, hyper-intellectual witticism at its finest, and Austin Shakespeare’s production confidently tackles the play’s decidedly challenging themes. The show takes on (among other things) the philosophical clash between reason and romanticism; explanations of advanced algebra; the second law of thermodynamics; and academic literary archeology; as they all play out on a country estate at the turn of both the eighteenth century and the twenty-first.
As with many of Stoppard’s plays, “Arcadia” is a challenge to sum up. It follows two asymptotic story lines - a student and her tutor in 1809 and a couple of academics studying the family records in the late twentieth century. Under Ann Ciccolella’s direction, this production rather downplays the tragic finale, resulting in a hybrid performance of light-hearted comedy and heavy-intellectualism.
Overall, the ensemble is excellent, as is much of the design. As the tutor, Septimus Hodge, Collin Bjork is the charming centripetal force of the eighteenth century world - seducing the women and the audience with his spunky equivocations. Georgia McLeland, a long-time veteran of Austin Shakespeare’s Young Shakespeare performances, bursts onto the main stage and proves herself an emerging Austin talent in her role as Thomasina Coverly (Septimus’ student).
Michael Dalmon is the highlight of the evening in his hilarious rendition of the foolish cuckold cum poet, Ezra Chater. Shelby Davenport gracefully slides into the role of the smarmy academic, Bernard Nightingale, and as his intellectual sparring partner, Hannah Jarvis, Liz Beckham’s brusque British reserve is charmingly captivating.
Justin Cox deserves particular acclaim for his fantastic stage accoutrement, as does Jonathan Heibert for his period costumes. Ia Enstera’s epic set design is quite stunning, though it loses some of its luster under too much scrutiny. John Vander Gheynst’s sound design doesn’t really do justice to the space, but the Rollins Studio Theatre offers state of the art assisted listening devices that help to eliminate ambient noise.
The first act of “Arcadia” stretches out like a rolling county green, and although the tempo isn’t particularly fast-paced, the steady rhythm of the witticisms keeps the show moving through the two and a half hour run.
‘Arcardia’ continues 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 19. Discussion between audience and actors to follow every performance. Rollins Studio Theater, Long Center.s $21-$24. www.thelongcenter.org.
Cate Blouke is an American-Statesman freelance arts critic.
Photo by Kimberley Mead for Austin Shakespeare.
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April 15, 2011
Texas Biennial: Like a whole other biennial
The 2011 Texas Biennial is bigger, busier and chock full of happenings like it never had been before.
Friday
Biennial art trek
Cruise Austin venues for the 2011 Texas Biennial tonight as each hosts opening receptions and performances. The suggested itinerary moved from downtown to East Austin.
From 5 to 8 p.m., start with the large displays of biennial art on the fifth and fourteenth floors 816 Congress ave., then head to Women & Their Work (1710 Lavaca St.) and UT’s Visual Art Center (UT campus on 23rd St.)
From 7 to 10 p.m. it’s the East Austin venues: Pump Project (702 Shady Lane), Big Medium (5305 Bolm Road) and a vacant house at 1319 Rosewood Ave.
At the Rosewood Ave. site at 8 p.m., artist Brad Tucker transforms into ‘Bad Trucker’ to stage ‘Future Proof’ a solo performance with video and TV monitors.
Saturday
“Like a Whole Other Country? The State of Contemporary Art in Texas”
A panel discussion featuring artists Margarita Cabrera and Trenton Doyle Hancock; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston curator Alison de Lima Greene; Los Angeles Times art critic David Pagel; and UT art history professor Richard Schiff.
2 p.m. at the Blanton Museum of Art
“Mexico Abre le Boca”
Artist Margarita Cabrera sets up her taco truck/art product vending stand — her smartly subversive art project that offers a critique of U.S.-Mexico trade imbalance.
5 to 8 p.m. at the southeast corner of Seventh Street and Congress Ave.
Image: “Kitty Pilgrim,” video installation, Sam Sanford. On view at 816 Congress Ave.
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April 7, 2011
Texas Biennial: Now with even more Texas!
We recently reported that 2011 Texas Biennial, in a smartly collaborative move, has designated dozens of arts institutions as participators to artist-run celebration of contemporary art.
Spreading the celebration further, biennial curator Virginia Rutledge has also managed to gain the participation of five internationally-recognized Texas artists — Margarita Cabrera, Mary Ellen Carroll, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Annette Lawrence and James Magee — and their innovative site-specific projects around the states.
From surprising contemporary art in the massive Cowboys Stadium to a smart subversion of US-Mexico trade to a singular vision of one artist in remote West Texas, the five projects are astutely chosen representatives of Texas’ current state of art-making.
Some of the projects, like Cabrera’s which will be in Austin April 16, have special biennial-related events. Others, like Magee’s in West Texas, take special arrangement to visit. Follow the links below.
- Margarita Cabrera
Mexico Abre la Boca. On display 5 to 8 p.m., April 16, in Austin
This installation/performance work uses a taco cart and trained vendors to dispense information about FLOREZCA, a for-profit multinational corporation formed by the artist to produce and sell traditional crafts in a context that addresses issues impacting immigrant and migrant communities.
- Mary Ellen Carroll
prototype 180, Houston. Special tour 11 a.m. April 30.
Prototype 180 is a conceptual work of art and an urban alteration that entails a radical form of renovation through the physical rotation and reoccupation of a single family house in the aging Houston subdivision of Sharpstown.
- Trenton Doyle Hancock
“From a Legend to a Choir,” Cowboys Stadium, Arlington
This expansive 41-foot-by-108-foot mural depicts an epic scene from the artist’s ongoing self-invented mythology, commissioned for Cowboys Stadium.
- Annette Lawrence
“Coin Toss,” Cowboys Stadium, Arlington
This delicate sculpture activates an architectural interior by engaging viewers awareness of the passage of time and the movement of bodies through space.
- James Magee
The Hill, Cornudas
A monumental work on 2,000 acres of desert in West Texas, the work consists of four identical buildings, each 40 feet long, 20 feet wide and 17 feet high, all connected by causeways.
Image: “From a Legend to a Choir,” Trenton Doyle Hancock.
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April 1, 2011
2011 Texas Biennial: Miles and miles of Texas art
That’s right — it’s all from Texas.
Some 50 Lone Star artists were chosen by New York independent curator Virginia Rutledge for this iteration of the artist-founded Austin-based 2011 Texas Biennial. And like the sprawling, exuberant self-proud state it represents, this time around the biennial spreads all the way across Texas.
Official Texas Biennial venues are in three cities now: Austin, San Antonio and Houston.
The Austin Biennial venues include UT’s Visual Arts Center, Women & Their Work, Pump Project Art Complex, Big Medium project space, an empty house at 1403 Rosewood Avenue in East Austin and even empty office space on the fifth and fourteenth floors of 816 Congress Avenue.
In San Antonio, Blue Star Contemporary Art Center plays official host. In Houston, it’s Box 13 Artspace.
And in brilliant move to unite an often disparate art community, Rutledge has smartly struck up cooperative relationships with myriad art spaces around the state who are currently hosting their own exhibits of Texas contemporary art that share the forward-looking spirit of the Texas Biennial. From the Grace Museum in Abilene to K Space Contemporary Corpus Christi, from the Longview Museum of Fine Arts to Ballroom Marfa — contemporary art is connecting the dots around Texas this month.
The 2011 Texas Biennial opens April 9.
All Austin venues open April 9 with exhibit hours from noon to 5 p.m. and the regular viewing hours are noon to 5 p.m. Wednesdays to Saturdays through May 14.
Pencil it in: On April 15 and April 16, a number of special events and performances are scheduled for Austin.
Admission to all official Texas Biennial exhibits is free. Participating statewide venues may have individual admission.
www.texasbiennial.org
Image: Anthony Garza. “Aard Cardinal Mountain Carrier,” 2010. Watercolor on Arches paper.
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