"intense, emotional..."

Thief River, now playing at Barrington Stage Company at Consolati Performing Arts Center in Sheffield, takes place over a period of fifty years in the lives of two gay men. It defines the difficulties of being gay men in a society not able to accept their sexual orientation.

(Run has been extended to August 24, 2004)

The two men, Gil and Ray, teenagers in a small Minnesota town experience rejection, violence, alienation from family and most of the other heartaches those separated from society undergo. After Gil is assaulted and humiliated by a high school classmate he is forced to leave town and build a life in the city, away from friends, family and his lover, Ray.

The story unfolds in flashbacks, with different actors playing the parts of the two men, as well as other men including relatives and a vagrant who affected their lives through the years. Thanks to makeup, wigs, beards and the ability of the actors to transform themselves into other people, the flashbacks move the story forward.

Still, at times it takes great concentration to keep individual characters straight in the storyline. Especially as the characters go from young men to middle aged and finally to appear old men then return again as a younger person.

Jeremy Bobb who plays the teenaged Ray shows his Midwestern bent to reliability and conservatism even at high school age. In one scene he also plays the almost over the top Kit, the middle aged Gil’s loopy, insecure lover.

David Drake, the middle aged Gil plays with conviction his desire to be with Ray, now married with a son. Gil remains convinced that Ray, despite the life he created in Thief River, still loves him.

Kevin Kell O’Donnell, as the teenaged Gil vents his pain and frustration over his beating with such intensity he admits he wanted to kill the boy who sullied him after the prom.

The set is minimal, bands of light as the background with reeds growing at the sides to indicate farmland never interfere with the emotions crying out on the stage.

Chairs in the small theater are secured on three sides of the stage but the action takes place in mid front and the excellent acoustics mean every seat offers a good view and dialogue carries out to the edges of the seating.

The costumes fit the eras as time passes from the late forties to the 70s and finally into the present century. The teenaged Gil appears in non descript shirt and pants then later the middle aged Gil’s brown suit cut in the tight style, flared pants of the 70s evokes the passage of time. Kit’s tight pants and flamboyant jewelry add to his definition as Gil’s then insecure, city boyfriend of the same era.

This is an intense, emotional unfolding of a lifetime of love, hidden at times but enduring despite distance, violence, even murder and a fifty year separation.