THE WHIPPING MAN
**Lucile Lortel Award winner and Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Lighting Design**
“Manhattan Theater Club’s production, directed by Doug Hughes, benefits from the expertly realized work of the veteran set designer John Lee Beatty, whose rendering of a decayed and distressed Southern town house has an almost gothic richness of detail. The oozing walls and falling plaster are a vivid image of a decadent world blasted into smithereens by the South’s defeat.
The shadowy lighting, by Ben Stanton, is also effective. Flickering, golden candlelight provides some gentle covering for the gruesome scene that comes early, when Simon and John perform an amputation on Caleb’s gangrenous leg. (Fear not, all those who lack the courage to brave “127 Hours”: while realistically rendered in stage terms, the scene is hardly cinematic in its gore.) As Caleb recuperates, with the indispensable aid of the whiskey looted by John, the three men warily establish the contours of their new relationship.” Charles Isherwood, The New York Times, Feb. 1, 2011
