The moments when you grow up, some may be small, others massive. You rarely see them coming but surely see them in the rearview mirror. For some, that moment happens earlier in life. For the characters in Deckie Does a Bronco, it came to them when they were nine. Over the duration of the seventy five minutes, the audience is taken with them from carefree ignorant bliss to uncomfortable, inevitable, intimate knowledge of the cruelties of adulthood. Done in a park, around a swing set that the cast uses for much more than just swinging (including the titular 'Broncoing'). The play walks the fine line between nostalgic remembrance and psychologic trauma, oft landing (to the pieces detriment) more on the side of nostalgia. But from the first moments when the cast begins to climb all over the swing set, it is transfixing and hypnotic. The burdens of the characters manifests itself through effective doubling of actors, with the elder versions of three of the main characters hovering around like ghosts; silently, woefully, reliving their pasts. As intense as this is, it still has a good deal of fun, taking the audience higher and higher until the emotional bottom just drops out.
