Theatre Review: Raw Anger in Search of Revenge in FEAST.

Veteran actor Katherine Catmull chews through Megan Gogerty’s vengeful script

Reviewed by Cat McCarrey, Fri., May 9, 2025

Katherine Catmull in FEAST. (Photo by Melissa McKnight)

Do you wake up with a gnawing pit of anxiety in your stomach? Do your guts twist into knots of dissatisfaction at the fearful state of the world? Do you look around at the ridiculous injustices being served and want to tear everything to shreds with your bare hands?

Then FEAST. might be for you.

Shrewd Productions reemerges from a brief period of inactivity with a message of raw anger in search of revenge, wrapped in 70 minutes of veteran Katherine Catmull deftly chewing her way through UT alum Megan Gogerty’s dense script.

Set designer and director Melissa McKnight transforms Hyde Park Theatre into a lavish dining room. Long tables sit onstage underneath branched chandeliers; centerpieces flowing with fruit and leaves prostrate before Catmull’s dais, where a throne holds the mysteries behind her party pastiche. It’s a practical set, to boot: Audience members can purchase tickets for their own roast chicken feast ahead of the production. Dinner seats also reserve the house’s prime spots, with a few locations guaranteeing interaction and possibly some up-close-and-personal accusations from Catmull’s cranky character.

Katherine Catmull in FEAST. (Photo by Melissa McKnight)

Shrewd Productions reemerges from a brief period of inactivity with a message of raw anger in search of revenge.

Ostensibly, Catmull plays the hostess. But it’s all a smokescreen for her true mission. She’s actually a mother on the prowl. Gogerty wrote FEAST. partially as a response to the epic poem Beowulf, her hostess howling at injustices done through the false history of her son Grendel. Those chandeliers above hold the hint of Grendel’s arm, torn off and displayed by Beowulf after a fearsome fight and stolen back by Grendel’s mother in a challenge to the conquering hero. The night’s feast is an attempt at communication between herself and us, the “invasive species” polluting the Earth. Domestic tools of the dinner party become her weapons of war. Vacillating between pure disdain and begrudging understanding, the founder of this feast ponders death, sex, motherhood, and love, trying to reconcile her rage with some sort of grace for the blameless among humanity.

Playing a tentacled sea monster adapting to a human form seems physically daunting. But to Catmull? Child’s play. She moves throughout her party with sinuous grace, her mouth slightly too wide, words slightly too enunciated. It’s easy to imagine her fitting fierce fangs into a cramped human jaw, testing out the capability of this mortal form as she chastises her guests.

Catmull’s ability to even deliver those words is admirable. Gogerty wrote a script to sink into. Sure, there are zippy zingers, but most sections offer erudite observations written with wordsmithing worthy of closer examination. It’s a text to marinate in, with lines to chew over and digest across the course of days, not mere minutes. It’s the type of writing that clamors for a highlighter and Post-it notes. A style of delivery begging to be read and studied, because this level of literature overwhelms in a sole evening. Catmull handles it beautifully, but the layers of meaning in FEAST. beg for more than a single viewing. They could take months to fully parse out.

For those willing to begin that journey of understanding, FEAST. is a ruminative starting point. This isn’t for the faint of heart, which is a phrase that becomes even more poignant with certain offerings throughout the production ... but I’ll leave that as a fun surprise for the viewer. It’s for a seasoned theatregoer looking for new experiences. Sit with her grief. Consider your contributions. Come hungry, and leave changed.