Lake No Bottom

This comic drama by the author of Moonchildren, Loose Ends, Spoils of War, Now There's Just the Three of Us, Fishing and The Ballad of Soapy Smith involves a literary critic and his wife who have retired to an idyllic New England lake. Their weekend visitor, a promising novelist whose work was discovered by the critic, has just published a kiss and tell trashy best seller. Ostensibly, the young author is stopping by on his way to lecture at a nearby college. In fact, he has come to see the wife, his former lover whom he still desires. She is bored in the boondocks and willingly resumes the affair. When her husband finds out, he suggests that they settle the matter like gentlemen do in books with dueling pistols. He proposes a hunt to the death in the woods of Lake No Bottom. The "duel" provides male gratification and a thrill for the woman being fought over. As the defeated author limps off with a flesh wound, the marriage he leaves behind is poignantly refreshed. Marsha Mason starred Off Broadway at Second Stage.