A Walk in the Woods
By Lee Blessing
Directed by: Ken Michels
Featuring: John Ellis and Joel Underwood
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art
7pm | April 18-19, 21, 25-26, 28
2pm | April 20, 27
NOTE: This show is also being held in Seattle from May 2-5. For reservations and details, visit https://indtheatre.ticketleap.com/a-walk-in-the-woods-seattle.
The running time of this performance is approximately 1 hour 45 minutes with one 15-minute intermission.
"an engrossing attempt to humanize a situation of awesome portentousness." -- The New York Times
"a work of passion and power with the ring of political truth" -- TIME Magazine
Synopsis: In the midst of the Cold War, two arms control negotiators -- Soviet Andrey Botvinnik and American John Honeyman -- stroll in the woods above Geneva, Switzerland in the late summer, away from the glare of the negotiating table. They eventually develop a relationship, although their personalities could hardly be more different. This humorous yet tense tale was inspired by the real-life "walk in the woods" between negotiators Paul Nitze and Yuli Kvitsinsky who left the official Geneva sessions to achieve a breakthrough which was soon rejected by their governments. However, they were credited with laying the groundwork for the subsequent Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 1987, which eliminated all of the two nations' land-based, mid-range nuclear missiles. President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the INF Treaty on February 1, 2019, followed a day later by Russia.