Still the River Runs

This is a hilarious and moving portrait of two estranged brothers on a mission to heist their deceased Paw-Paw’s body and put him to rest in the wilds of their old hunting grounds. A delightfully colorful play, it is a saga of stubborn dreams, family loyalty and living on the edge in rural Florida.

Shocks like Paw-Paw’s death are not usually occurrences that bring out the best in families. Jesse, the elder brother, is saddled with a mountain of debt and mouths to feed. Wyatt, the younger brother, is on leave from the War in Iraq. They have disagreed about almost everything since childhood and their abduction of Paw-Paw’s body is fraught with misgivings, not the least because of their concerns for the comfort of the deceased, their imaginative disagreements about the afterlife, and the shortness of time before Wyatt must report for re-deployment to Iraq. Still, they steal the body right from under their family’s nose. With a sack of soil replacing Paw-Paw in his casket and the old man bouncing in the bed of the truck, they set out for the swampy woods near Bartow. There, in the sanctuary of the wilderness, they hope to provide Paw-Paw’s spirit the serenity they seek for their own lives. Through a series of progressive vignettes, Still the River Runs” paints with vivid strokes a cumulative portrait of two brothers who have become strangers, struggling to find their place in a world where real men are a dying breed.