Season of Concern: 2018
Maxwell Anderson's "Sea Wife"
Directed by Frank Farrell
First Flight Productions
First Flight Productions
Acrosstown’s ‘True West’ runs full gamut of emotions
By Ron Cunningham, Sun theater critic
Photographs by Carolyne Salt
Photographs by Carolyne Salt
The glue that holds this production together is the chemistry between these brothers. It is especially remarkable because George Steven O’Brien (Lee) and Mike McShane (Austin) bear not a wit of physical resemblance. Lee is tall, rangy and scraggly of beard and hair. Austin is short, pinched-faced and squinty. But blood is thicker than the lenses of Austin’s glasses, and in their quarrelsome exchanges and body language, these two fine actors totally sell their brother act.
O’Brien is excellent as the underachiever who long ago buried his innate intelligence and talents under an emotional desert. It can’t be easy to act well — and act well inebriated — for an entire production. But O’Brien pulls it off.
And Mike McShane equally shines in the role of his brother’s emotional and physical punching bag. For all his outward success, Austin secretly pines to be Lee ... and maybe he is.
The ART’s production of “True West” is worth seeing precisely because it does have the ring of truth. Like family life itself, it is by turns, funny, sad, disturbing and redeeming.
Maybe, but by the final scene of “True West,” the faint scent of salvation lingers still in the wreckage of the kitchen that is the familial battleground.
And it smells like toast.
O’Brien is excellent as the underachiever who long ago buried his innate intelligence and talents under an emotional desert. It can’t be easy to act well — and act well inebriated — for an entire production. But O’Brien pulls it off.
And Mike McShane equally shines in the role of his brother’s emotional and physical punching bag. For all his outward success, Austin secretly pines to be Lee ... and maybe he is.
The ART’s production of “True West” is worth seeing precisely because it does have the ring of truth. Like family life itself, it is by turns, funny, sad, disturbing and redeeming.
Maybe, but by the final scene of “True West,” the faint scent of salvation lingers still in the wreckage of the kitchen that is the familial battleground.
And it smells like toast.
Director’s casting job shines in Acrosstown’s ‘Foreigner’
By Ron Cunningham, Sun theater critic
Photographs by Iver Thue
Photographs by Iver Thue
Mike McShane is over the top as Ellard, Catherine’s supposedly half-wit brother whose bizarre hip-hop/backwoods bumpkin split personality masks a hidden intelligence aching to bust free. Ellard’s hilarious breakfast scene with the foreigner is a show stopper.
Can you say “fork?” Not so fast.
By the way, McShane’s first appearance on stage proves that this actor knows how to make an entrance. And how to make an exit.
Can you say “fork?” Not so fast.
By the way, McShane’s first appearance on stage proves that this actor knows how to make an entrance. And how to make an exit.
Words don't fail an eclectic group of poets at ArtSpeaks
By Hannah O. Brown, Correspondent
Brad McClenny, Staff photographer
Brad McClenny, Staff photographer
ARTSPEAKS at the Thomas Center (Gainesville, Florida)
Sunday January 26, 2014
"University of Florida student and videographer Mike McShane performed a Shakespeare piece from memory, floating across the floor and gesturing emphatically as the complicated language lifted from his tongue."
Sunday January 26, 2014
"University of Florida student and videographer Mike McShane performed a Shakespeare piece from memory, floating across the floor and gesturing emphatically as the complicated language lifted from his tongue."