Review: Oversight by The Zahir
by Michael Meigs
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 very skeptical senator. The announced subject of discussion is Russian hypersonic weapons, but the congresswoman tells her colleagues that's just a cover story. Something more urgent is demanding attention.
LB Deyo’s vigorous, meaty dialogue weaves a plot of intrigue, deception, and a catastrophe—one that may be a complete deception. The committee, allegedly approved by the president, is tasked with determining the country’s course of action.
Now, two points, the first from a former diplomat:
First, suspend your disbelief.
This is not how interagency deliberation works in our constitutional system of government. Each of those individuals sits atop a structure of professionals, advisers, a public stance, and carefully worked out policy positions. Policy making is a clash and resolution of interests, and decisions must be fed back and post-approved. The playwright thrills us with accelerating conflict and urgent claims that A DECISION MUST BE MADE, NOW, OR ELSE . . . (Have you been warned about similar calls from unknown parties?).
On the other hand, Deyo has crafted a crisis situation that warns of an all too conceivable trumpian approach: expertise and fact are forced to yield to ideology and fantasy, and only a handful of questionably qualified individuals make calls for the rest of us, the 340 million.
Second, appreciate the structure.
Deyo’s extremely well-crafted script tantalizes by revealing the topic of this urgent consultation slowly and stepwise, knotting the plot twists about us and developing each revelation by exploring horrific implications. The specter of international cyberwar is part of it; even more concerning is the participants’ contemplation of artificial intelligence evolving into fourth and fifth generations of self-determining personhood. This structure, along with the vivid character writing, tempts one to contemplate whether Oversight isn’t really a radio play, one where the words tell all and actions tell little.
Director Marcus McQuirter exercises his ingenuity to break the static scene of a committee planted along a curving table. Actors portraying senior officials sit facing imagined empty seats in a hearing room and a single silent stenographer. The script has them regularly bristling at the chair and casually ignoring rules of order; when a character becomes emphatic and insistent, McQuirter gets the actor up and moving, usually pacing in front of the hearing room table. No wonder the chair has to resort to admonitions and flourishing the gavel!
And the two witnesses. This super-secret committee has been convened to assess a report and request from a leading AI firm, represented by its chief scientist and an assistant. Romul Sulit, a memorably eloquent actor, goes the opposite way with this character. Dr. Kareem Najah is a muttering, expostulating, hesitant data devotee who’s been tasked by someone (who?) to sell an outrageous proposal to the U.S. government. Sulit sits in profile at the end of the table on the audience’s left, orienting his words and gaze to the chairwoman at the center of the room. Next to him, Jessica Cohen as his assistant Cass Ogden winces, stares at her boss as if willing him to get to the point, bites her lip, and finally blurts out truths. Her focus and kinetic unease are riveting. They contrast with the comfortably officious attitudes of those along the rest of the table.
The pleasure of Oversight is the puzzle. But no more spoilers here! CTXLiveTheatre usually illustrates reviews with performance photos provided by companies or scraped from the internet. In keeping with the Top Secret nature of the tale, Deyo’s company The Zahir has published essentially none of those. Instead, they led with a series of intriguing, dark-hued posters. Once Elise Krenzel's review and Sabrina Wallace's review had been published, the company slathered pull quotes across dramatic closeups of the actors and loosed those images to the 'net.
Oversight will make you think. Sometimes that hurts your head, especially when Deyo’s themes and covert warnings are all too real and contemporary.
EXTRAS
Click HERE to view The Zahir's program card for Oversight.
Click this QR code for more cast and crew bios.
Oversight
by L.B. Deyo
The Zahir
July 30 - August 22, 2026
July 30 - August 22, 2026
Hyde Park Theatre, 511 W. 43rd St., Austin
