When Male Bonding Along a River Goes Brutally Wrong
Alexis SoloskiOctober 23, 2014: Four urbanites plan a relaxing holiday on a Georgia river. They’ll drink beers, play guitar, shoot the occasional doe. Well, leave it to sniper fire and rape to spoil a country weekend. Godlight Theater Company, a troupe committed to bringing books to the stage, has given James Dickey’s 1970 novel, Deliverance, the theatrical treatment. (It differs from the better-known film in several respects. Don’t expect any pig squealing.) Performed by seven actors on an intimate stage just 12 feet by 12 feet, it’s the kind of backwoods saga that will make you lavishly thankful for the comforts of concrete and taxis and takeout Chinese. If this is a story of a really bad vacation (someone should post a strongly worded warning on TripAdvisor’s Georgia board), it is more broadly about a crisis in masculinity. It’s because the survivalist Lewis (Gregory Konow) fears that easy living will make him soft that he talks his pals into joining him on a canoe trip, a way to stave off “the long declining routine of our lives.”
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