Black River Falls
by Bryn Magnus
It’s 1978, the Jonestown Massacre is hot news, and 17-year old Gary has cut short what was supposed to be an extended stay in the woods. That he failed to kill a deer is cause for concern. Returning to his small Wisconsin town for Thanksgiving weekend, Gary’s worried about his 15-year-old sister, exasperated with his just-short-of-out-of-it dad, and vaguely in love with a longtime crush who’s involved with another local boy and probably a few others along the way. Our somnambulant hero is alienated, world weary, and the only virgin on stage, much to little sister’s delight.
“Magnus’ play succeeds at capturing the broken dialogue and false bravado of teenagers while also hinting at their vulnerability and desire for answers to the big questions. It’s the kind of potent mixture that can drive hundreds of young people to follow a megalomaniac into the jungle – or that can drive one broken-hearted girl to exact a startling revenge.”
“I can think of hundreds of slicker productions that have offered much less. Yet details matter. The quiet care of such unaffected acting should carry the day, but the direction and design undermine that virtue. The play ends up being a strange failure, and an even stranger success.”
