Exit, Pursued by a Bear

After years of abuse, Nan is finally ready to escape her marriage to Kyle. With a little help from her longtime best friend Simon (who comes dressed as a cheerleader to show his support) and an optimistic stripper named Sweetheart, Nan wants to make Kyle understand what he’s done wrong before taking her final revenge. Both aspiring actresses, Nan and Sweetheart meet at an audition and hatch a plan inspired by Shakespeare’s immortal stage direction in The Winter’s Tale: “Exit, pursued by a bear.” With a flair for theatrics, the group tapes Kyle to a chair after he stumbles home drunk and performs a series of scenes for him, reenacting the events in his marriage to Nan that have led to this moment. Gunderson subtitles her play, “A Revenge Comedy,” and delivers nothing less, as the fast paced action screams towards Kyle’s fate. Once the team have strewn the North Georgia home (and Kyle) with honey and raw meat, it should only be a matter of time before a bear comes along to finish the job. As the laughs roll, Gunderson cleverly takes us up close to the reality of domestic violence, examining multiple perspectives of those involved, each flawed, contradictory, and human.