Recent Reviews
Review: THE MAIDS by Jean Genet, Mad Cat Theatre, Austin
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 12, 2026
New company Mad Cat productions in Austin stages a dark, sparkling gem of a play with Genet's over-the-top black comedy THE MAIDS.
Mad Cat Theatre Company is a welcome addition to Austin's theatre scene and its inaugural production of The Maids by Jean Genet is an ambitious career step for talented founders Maddie Scanlan and Allison Paranka. Both have taken star turns in Austin with Elizabeth Newman’s Filigree Theatre. Scanlan had notable roles in Suddenly Last Summer and The Last Match, and Paranka was in Summer and Smoke. They have many additional credits in Austin and elsewhere. …
Review: #2 of 2 Oversight by The Zahir
by David Glen Robinson
Published on August 10, 2026
High expectations of LB Deyo's haven't been disappointed. Urgent debate and engimatic argument in the sealed chamber beneath the U.S. Capitol could mirror what's happening right now in Washington.
The stage setting is a long, curved conference table with a stenographer’s table far downstage, practically in the audience. To this reviewer, the set was reminiscent of the long table set for Annie Baker’s The Antipodes. That play never really revealed a subject of its fictional project, but Oversight throws down innumerable hard, mostly threatening facts about our current state and potential future. We quickly see that the stage conference room represents a SCIF conference …
Review #1 of 2: Oversight by LB Deyo, The Zahir
by Michael Meigs
Published on August 07, 2026
The pleasures of Oversight are the puzzle, the menace, LB Deyo's vigorous meaty dialogue, and the all too real and contemporary nature of the dilemma.
Their deliberations take place in a dim and featureless congressional committee room. Some are annoyed that security was so tight. The Vice President, a weedy Texan, tries to joke about it but no one pays attention to him (remember Sam Rayburn’s description of that position as “pitcher of warm spit”?). This is a curiously constituted group, chaired by a congressional representative but including the VP, the Secretary of State, a grumpy four-star general, and single …
Review: The Woman Clothed in the Sun with the Moon under her Feet by David McGuff, Yellow Lab Productions, Kerrville
by Donna Provencher
Published on July 21, 2026
Cerebral and ambitious, David McGuff's original take on grief and loss in the lives of Twain and Eddy succeeds with gripping pacing, vividly subtle acting, and powerful visual imagery.
What David McGuff is aiming to do with Yellow Lab Productions is nothing short of a Hill Country revolution — and by nearly every metric, in this production he’s hit his mark admirably. Yellow Lab, less than a decade old, markets itself as a fringe theater company focused on edgier or more provocative work not often tackled by local companies. Past productions include Equus, Misery and The Pillowman, all infrequent visitors to Central Texas stages. …
Review: The Addams Family by Magnolia Musical Theatre
by David Glen Robinson
Published on July 20, 2026
They're creepy and they're kooky, mysteriously spooky. And wildly popular. Magnolia Musical Theatre in Bee Gave delivers a memorable production. Especially Ismael Soto III as Lurch.
It was all about Lurch. Played by Ismael Soto III, Lurch, the standout monster in a tidal pool of Cthulhu creepy-crawlies transformed into musical theatre characters, is the monster we all need. Impeccably made up in his fashionably black but dusty and cob-webbed suit, he lacked only the bolt-neck of his Hollywood Karlovian progenitor to nail the Frankenstein vibe. He still sparked the frisson of horror from deep inside our childhoods. The Addams Family, produced …
Review: Stage Blood by Different Stages
by David Glen Robinson
Published on July 15, 2026
Ludlam's rollicking comedy satirizes theatre personalities; at its center, Will Gibson Douglas makes it happen and gets some of the best punchlines.
Stage Blood is a long, rollicking comedy by satirist playwright Charles Ludlum. Different Stages threw it onstage at The Vortex on Manor Road to great success. The play is enjoyable for all, above all for those who have seen or read Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A traveling theatre company struggles at every stop to produce the ghost-ridden tale of the Prince of Denmark. The current stop is Pflugerville. And we have a story-within-a-story-within-a-story: a stereotypically disaffected stage …