"Describing the play would do it injustice, for the theatrical weirdness must be experienced, his convoluted disquisitions heard out loud, his modern literary minimalism felt in the flesh. What I can tell you is that Catastrophic’s team of wizards has performed wonders of their own. Barthelme’s collage-like antics have been swathed with a visual aesthetic that is the perfect equivalent of his own distinct fragmentary style. Everything meshes. The page becomes the stage.
Ryan McGettigan’s tiered staircase, framed by skewed window frames, with a large shower curtain upstage center is a dreamscape all its own." - D.L. Groover, Houston Press

"Barthelme—who, by all accounts, loved a good party, and gave a good party, and who will, posthumously, preside over another in Houston this Friday—would have enjoyed." - Susan Choi, The New Yorker

"Viewed as a whole, Catastrophic's staging - set by Ryan McGettigan, video by Full Media Jacket - is a nod toward abstract expressionism, featuring windows that are too big and that lean too far to the left or right. ... a production filled with sharp angles, wide eyes and campy thrills" - Wei-Huan Chen, Houston Chronicle

"Seeing the ensemble cast acting out the swift train of scenes on Ryan McGettigan’s expressionist set was like getting glimpses inside a giant head from one of the illustrated riffs in Forty Stories (1987)." - Robert Cremins, Los Angeles Review of Books