Recent Reviews
Review: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by La Bête Productions
by Donna Provencher
Published on August 17, 2026
Blake Hammam directs with cogent and thoughtful restraint, trusting the material rather than embellishing it. A strong ensemble centered on Kevin Engel as sane hustler Randal Murphy and Belinda Harolds as a beautifully restrained and nuance Nurse Ratched.
There is a version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest that is very easy to stage badly. Some productions are loud and lurid and uncomplicated, with McMurphy as the swaggering folk hero, Nurse Ratched as the emasculating monster, the men of the ward sane people imprisoned by a cruel system, as everything barrels inevitably toward tragedy we can see coming from 500 paces. Blake Hamman’s production for La Bête Productions is intentionally smarter than …
Review #3 of 3: OVERSIGHT by LB Deyo, The Zahir
by Brian Paul Scipione
Published on August 14, 2026
LB Deyo's OVERSIGHT is frightening because these characters are making decisions about AI but not one of them is objective. More harrowing still: it's unlikely any such committee actually exists.
There will be no intermission. In fact, there is nothing at all that can stop this train as it hurtles blindly into an unknown future with no headlight all the while gaining momentum at a hyper algorithmic pace. Last year saw the debut of LB Deyo’s dark, psychological thriller Apprehension which could be also described as a horror story. His newest work Oversight is much more disturbing, if only because it concerns not just the …
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 3: 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 3: 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. …