… cut adrift …
Raft of the Medusa is powerful, intensely human, and totally real — you are there.
Like Gericault’s epic shipwreck painting, The Raft of the Medusa of 1819 (see it below left), this play is based on a dire situation with many deaths and few survivors — only instead of shipwreck victims, these are victims of a mortal disease, brought together in 1988 not on a survival raft but — same thing — in a group therapy session for those infected with the AIDS virus. Seeing the play you know this is what it was like: beyond belief grim, and yet — in the way its draws out the best in people, there’s a gleam of light, a breath of hope, as in the painting. It’s a rich, brilliant and beautifully written play, acted to perfection.
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