Rock Opera . Austin Chronicle . 03-29-99

Rock Opera

DIRECTED BY: Bob Ray

REVIEWED: 03-29-99

PigPoke needs to go on tour. As long as pot smokers are around, it shouldn't be a problem to raise money, $25 at a time, right? It would seem easy, but head PigPoker Toe gets too far into debt to his dealer and things get more complicated. After a bout with a dart-administered big-game tranquilizer that leaves him prostrate in the gravel with an empty wallet, he's sent to Del Rio on an errand to settle things up. From there, of course, things only get much, much worse for the unfortunate bagman. Rock Opera turns into a hysterically funny slacker caper movie filled with a stale-beer Austin-underbelly ambianceof pawnshops, shabby apartments, and punk rock bars (trombone slingers the Fuckemos do a song of which Sousa would not have approved), all traveled by our hapless reefer-befogged hero Toe. Like Slacker, its locations and attitude are all very familiar to us Austin denizens, but its plot twists, characters, and direction should carry it well past the Travis County line.

--Jerry Renshaw

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Rock Opera

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