Review #1 of 2: The Yellow Wallpaper by The Archive Theater Company
by David Glen Robinson

The Yellow Wallpaper has generated considerable buzz in the theatre community for being a disturbing "gothic" tale set in the 1890s. It certainly is that, but disturbing plays may also be lauded for high production values, insights, and excellence of performance. Such is the case with The Yellow Wallpaper.

 

The play is a showcase of The Archive Theatre, a company emerging from setbacks going back to the vast Covid 19 pandemic. Producing artistic director Jennifer Rose Davis shows great resilience and has always made excellent choices. Her company has produced Cyrano de Bergerac, The Three Musketeers, The Raven-Winged Hours (a tribute to Edgar Allen Poe), Shaw's The Man of Destiny, and Macbeth. The company is back in full form in The Yellow Wallpaper.

 

The focus is the use and abuse of an 1890s medical practice known as “The Resting Cure.” Believe me, there was no rest for the audience. A better title for the play would have been The Frankenstein Hours. The beginning is aftermath. A sufferer is released from a clinic to a private residence under the care of her husband, a physician. The only onstage characters are  portrayed by Mon Darter as the physician/husband and Sadie Okerstrom as the patient. The plot line is literary, in that it starts dismal and depressing and only gets worse. Jeff Davis adapted and expanded Charlotte Perkins Gilman's nineteenth-century short story.

 

This reviewer recently had the tables turned on him by a producer who complained that his narrative in a review missed an important plot twist and was full of spoilers. That raised the question: if I'd detected and reported that plot twist, wouldn't that have have constituted  another disgusting spoiler? Suppose we define "spoiler" as anything about a production the producer doesn’t want let out. Such reveals are often vain and mostly shallow. Sometimes embarrassing, rarely profound. But with that definition, anything in a play, if described, becomes a spoiler. That creates difficulties for writing clearly about a stage play. Critics can take comfort in the truism “You can’t please everyone.”

 

No spoilers of any quality or nature in this review. The audience must allow the gothic horror to hit them cold and hope they survive. Meanwhile, the play will illuminate nineteenth-century societal abuses of women (some lingering in the twenty-first century)—physical, medical, financial, intellectual, artistic, and marital.

 

We live in about the fourth generation of feminism. This reviewer has noted before the literary perils of viewing an earlier time through a contemporary lens. Intense and occasionally overacted, the abuses shown in this expanded version of Gilman's story seem never to end. A simple listing in order would be comprehensive, appallingly repetitious, and full of spoilers. A modicum of restraint would have alleviated some of the sweatier work on stage while still retaining the full horror of the situation. 

 

Faith Sanders directed this monster with lighting design by Amy Lewis and sound design by Victoria Schwartz. The all-important scene designer was Cody Arn with his many helpers: James Barnes, Cory Krug, Faith Sanders, Sarah Swearer, Jenny Meigs, Sadie Okerstrom, Rachel Hancock, Angelina Castillo, Carlos Roque, Allanah Maarteen, Briana Glover, Keri Kaviani, and Nick Ivons. This group did remarkable work. Jennifer Rose Davis designed the costumes and props with the assistance of Milo Calvert. Amber Wilson oversaw makeup and special effects.

 

The Yellow Wallpaper runs September 4 – 20, 2026 at the Trinity Street Playhouse, 901 Trinity Street, downtown Austin. It's a play for adults with courage and emotional fortitude. 

 

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The Yellow Wallpaper
by Jeff Davis, adapted from an 1892 story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Archive Theater Company

September 4 - 20, 2026

Trinity Street Playhouse, 4th floor of First Austin, 901 Trinity Street, Austin

Our industry night is Wednesday, September 9th, and we have special discount tickets for industry artists on that night. We want anyone who wants to see the show to be able to, so reach out to us and we’ll work with you.