Theater review: RTC’s ‘Death and the Maiden’ is a powerful, unsettling play

By LUCIE K. SCHEUER for the Rogue Valley Times October 21, 2026

“Death and the Maiden” currently on stage in the Richard L. Hay Center, by the Rogue Theater Company, is a powerful, unsettling play. It is layered with meaning and symbolism as it searches for the truth around perceived atrocities and makes an attempt to hold those responsible, accountable.

One example of society’s attempts to prosecute war crimes are the globally recognized Nuremberg trials after World War II, when Nazi leaders faced a tribunal in 1945. 

“Death and the Maiden” is based on a similar premise, but takes place in a couple’s living room. It centers around a lawyer named Gerardo, who has been prosecuting war crimes in his unnamed Latin American country transitioning from a dictatorship to a democracy. The perceived injustices involve his wife, Paulina and a doctor named Roberto who monitored torture sessions for the country’s former military regime.

The performances by Nell Geisslinger as Paulina, Daniel Molina as Gerardo and James Newcomb as Roberto are brilliant, exhausting, and disturbing. The story demands that they be.

Gerardo is helped late one night by Roberto (introduced as a kind stranger) to change a tire. Because it is late, Gerardo invites Roberto back to the couple’s beach house for the night. The situation is about to become personal very quickly.

Paulina overhears Roberto’s voice, picks up his scent, and is convinced he is the doctor who sexually assaulted and tortured her during the country’s revolution. Paulina takes Roberto captive to coerce a confession, appointing husband Gerardo as his lawyer.

As a lawyer who has been appointed to a commission to investigate human rights abuses by his country’s prior dictatorship, Gerardo now finds himself severely compromised. Shocked by his wife’s kidnapping of Roberto, he has doubts about Paulina’s story. He exhibits a strange allegiance to Roberto and a reluctance to try him. We are the only witnesses.

If you go deeper, this play is just as much about a woman scorned. When a woman is physically violated, there is a rage that can go dormant within her soul, until it is reawakened by a touch, the sound of a voice, or even a familiar strain of music. It is a rage that builds to trauma, taking on a life of its own. In most cases, the only path to healing is exposure of the truth.

Director Caroline Shaffer steps into the eye of the hurricane with this piece. She helps the actors find their footing while expertly steering rage towards some kind of resolution.

Playwright Ariel Dorfman’s title comes from Franz Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden,” which Roberto claims to have played during interrogations, to calm victims down. Like her play, Schubert’s piece is written in a minor key, intense, prickly and foreboding.

This is a timely piece. With the escalating violence and sexual assaults against women, we are forced to address perceived injustices on many levels. This powerful work grabs you, throws you in the front seat, and demands your full attention.

Performances of “Death and the Maiden” are scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays through Nov. 1, in the Richard L. Hay Center at Grizzly Peak Winery, 1600 E. Nevada St., Ashland. Tickets are $40; $45 at the door.

For tickets and further information see roguetheatercompany.com or call 541-205-9190.

Reach Ashland-based writer Lucie K. Scheuer at LucieScheuer19@gmail.com.