Review: Oversight by The Zahir
by David Glen Robinson
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 room -- an intrusion-proof Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility under the US Capitol.
Oversight at the Hyde Park Theatre is the second offering from producer and playwright L.B. Deyo. Some of the inspired writing occurred last year during production of Deyo’s Apprehension, awarded Best Original Script recognition by the ATX Theatre Critics. Expectations soared for Oversight, and the audiences crowding Hyde Park Theatre have not been disappointed.
The conference transpires in the “above Top Secret” stratosphere accessible only to top national leaders, all of whom bring in their personality quirks and edgy demands for recognition of their authority. The Chair (Danu Mara) must make insistent calls for secrecy, no electronic transmissions in or out, same for physical movement. The cast created entirely believable characters as all the federal leaders growled their annoyance at not knowing “what this thing is all about.” This angry chatting comes after the announcement that the subject of the meeting, the threat of hypersonic missiles from Russia, is a pretext. The actual topic is the threat of AI attack from China.
Under the direction of Marcus McQuirter, one subtle brilliance of the script was the contrast in demeanor between the blowhard characters of national leadership and the unassuming civilian visitors to the conference, Dr. Najah (Rommel Sulit) and Cass Ogden (Jessica Cohen). As “normals,” this invited duo's reactions and body language were natural. Najah loses his train of thought and fumbles worriedly through his papers. His assstant, senior scientist Cass Ogden, repeatedly reacts with horror and disgust at the blind, ignorant statements of the high government types. She is the very mistress of eyerolling. Najah and Ogden are principal scientists of Open Brain, an AI company that's the only real competition for China. Najah reports strong evidence that China is mobilizing its economy to achieve a conquering edge in “compute” and that time is running out. To emphasize his argument, he sets down an egg-shaped digital egg timer, symbolic in itself. The US must nationalize much of its own economy to stop China and avert a catastrophic attack. The threats from hypersonic missiles pale in comparison. A vote must be taken to authorize massive mobilization.
That is the throughline of the play, causing intense debate. Senator Graham (Robert Pierson) rejects all such arguments and holds Najah and Ogden in deep suspicion. Does the folksy senator support China? Is this a red herring? The Vice President (Justin Smith) is the soul of self-serving ignorance, but he rises to the occasion and against character gives a stirring speech in praise of Western civilization, even mentioning the plays of Sophocles. Gritty General Stossen (David Kroll) stresses his enmity of China and explains carefully how computers and their chips are strategic weapons. The Secretary of State (Laura D’Eramo) complains on cue and passes notes back and forth with the Vice President. The term “conspiracy theory” was not used in the play, but D’Eramo always has the look of cooking along with two or three of her colleagues.
Astonishingly and against protocol, the Chair breaches electronic safeguards to make a video call to the owner of Open Brain, trillionaire Adam Harriman (Brent Werzner), responding from Seattle. This video design work by Lowell Bartholomee, shot at the Commodore Perry estate on Red River Street in Austin, is exceptional. The video contains foreshadowing pops and jumps that YouTube® viewers will recognize as clues of AI content. Later Cass Ogden raises an alarm, pointing out perceived latency of the transmission. Kudos to Bartholomee's shooting video for AI.
Lighting design must coordinate with direction. In a persistent pattern of rather clumsy blocking, characters would stand up and walk in front of the panel to give monologues. Conference panel tables are curved and have microphones at every station so all can see all and speak clearly and well heard. The practice on stage was understandable for the sake of adding movement and variety, but it wasn't particularly effective. For example, General Stossen stood at stage center, turned and faced the conference, and declaimed in darkness. Lack of lighting blunted his speech. In another example, the stenographer (Janelle Buchanan) sits far downstage in obscurity. Her magmatic meltdown late in the play suffered similarly from the lack of good lighting.
Rommel Sulit’s massive role as Kareem Najah is the real driver of the play. Though the Chair with her gavel and rebukes sits at the center of the long table, she cannot direct the arguements. Nor can any of the hierarchical and hegemonic national leaders. This is a subtle and literary overturning of hierarchy, a demonstration that intelligent, creative folks fully invested in their subject matter gain great influence as an adjunct, not as a goal. Najah models the power of that expertise even as he manipulates characters to achieve his purpose—one character in particular. Sulit’s lines as Najah emerge as thought, modified by subtle shifts in his emotionality and responses to the other characters. Sulit captured Najah and the spirit of the play. He pushed dramatic tension continually upward in his interactions and warned repeatedly that time was running out.
The digital egg timer countdown went all the way to zero and ejected the debate into negative space/time. Characters exploded in various ways, the iPhone was ringing, we leaned forward for the goddam vote. Oversight gave us an ending some may think of as an ambiguous, but instead of being disappointed at theatre interruptus, we were oddly satisfied. Perhaps because Deyo's creeation so thoroughly reflects our current conflicted, fraught, violent, mysterious, and confusing social reality.
The play is recommended for all undisturbed by a little dirt language. The Zahir is producing The Egg by Noah Masterson at The Rosette in Austin, October 29 - November 22. Plan for it.
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
