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Deer
Upper West Side empty-nesters Ken and Cynthia hit a deer while driving to their weekend house in the Poconos. Cynthia tries desperately to nurse the dead animal back to life, as Ken fights for his first weekend alone with his wife in twenty-five years. As their lifeless, bloody new pet takes over their lives, Ken and Cynthia will either rekindle their love or kill each other. DEER is a grisly, pitch-black comedy about normal people who snap.
- GenresPlays
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 6, 2024
New review, 10/24:
On a reread, I don't what I was thinking originally. I didn't find this nearly as funny on a 2nd go-round, and the second act is just a mess, and goes exactly where you think it will. It's also exceedingly repetitious. But points for being original and WAYYY out there!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBHRi...
Original review, 11/17
4.5, rounded down:.
A disturbing, but VERY funny black comedy, I am not so sure this would actually PLAY as well as it reads; indeed, the one review I could find of its only production (so far), was not terribly enthusiastic. And the fact that the staging requires a realistic looking deer corpse that not only bleeds profusely, but is hacked apart during the course of the play, I would assume is beyond the means of any but the most flush theatre companies. And the second, much shorter act, doesn't quite live up to the promise of the bizarre first act. Still I would love to see this performed, especially by the incredibly talented Chip Zien and Alison Fraser, for whom it was written.
On a reread, I don't what I was thinking originally. I didn't find this nearly as funny on a 2nd go-round, and the second act is just a mess, and goes exactly where you think it will. It's also exceedingly repetitious. But points for being original and WAYYY out there!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBHRi...
Original review, 11/17
4.5, rounded down:.
A disturbing, but VERY funny black comedy, I am not so sure this would actually PLAY as well as it reads; indeed, the one review I could find of its only production (so far), was not terribly enthusiastic. And the fact that the staging requires a realistic looking deer corpse that not only bleeds profusely, but is hacked apart during the course of the play, I would assume is beyond the means of any but the most flush theatre companies. And the second, much shorter act, doesn't quite live up to the promise of the bizarre first act. Still I would love to see this performed, especially by the incredibly talented Chip Zien and Alison Fraser, for whom it was written.
May 21, 2017
I would love to see this onstage. I'm not quite sure how a cast would handle the deer corpse well enough to give this script justice. This play is a very dark comedy, and it continually ups the ante on the snapped meter.
September 25, 2024
Genuinely repulsive (and to what end, I'm not sure) - and presents unnecessary production challenges to any theater with the inclination to do it. Structurally, it's a bit wonky. The intermission between acts would be a momentum killer, but needed to clean all the blood and dirt off of everything. The most feasible way to do this play would be to contradict the author's instructions, wrap the 'deer' in a blanket so that we only see its legs, not have blood gushing everywhere and only have the actor's clothes get dirty so that they only had to change costumes in a blackout between acts so that it could be played straight through. Of course all of that would require permission and I doubt Aaron Mark would give it since he wrote it to be shocking, rather than playable.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews