Bad Trip

Comments (0) By Keith Bowers Wednesday, Mar 9 2011

More About

The Blaskets are a small cluster of hilly islands in Ireland, where until recently villagers are said to have lived out their ancient ways without modern influences. Two old friends are there on a trip whose purpose is unclear. They’re in a car. It’s raining heavily. One friend has a leather bag that’s a seemingly endless storehouse of items: an overcoat, multiple homeopathic remedies, pillows, a huge orange scarf. The other friend has a guidebook that tells travelers what’s not there (a bridge) as well as what might be there (the Tinkers, mysterious people who roam about conning tourists — sometimes luring them to be robbed, beaten, or worse). It’s The Islanders, a short story by Andrew Sean Greer about the bonds of love and friendship in the face of mystery and danger. Tonight it’s also a play by Word for Word. Since 1993, the troupe has transformed fiction into performance, staging written works by Tobias Wolff, Amy Tan, and Daniel Handler, among others. (Handler will appear alongside Greer for a conversation after Friday’s performance.) Once it’s done with The Islanders, the troupe is headed for what it describes as a “tour de France.” We trust that its members will bring guidebooks and avoid hilly roads in the rain.
Wednesdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m. Starts: March 9. Continues through March 12, 2011