DELIVERING WORDS, IMAGES OF DICKEY.

Byline: Reed Johnson Daily News Staff Writer

His name, for better or worse, evokes nightmarish images of Burt Reynolds spraying arrows at hillbilly goons and Ned Beatty squealing like a pig.

Though the late James Dickey wrote 20 volumes of poetry, as well as plays, screenplays, journalism and criticism, it was John Boorman's 1972 film of Dickey's hair-raising novel ``Deliverance'' that turned the hulking, hard-drinking Georgia author into a pop-culture fixture.

A softer, sentimental side of Dickey emerges in Theatre West Youth Theatre's world premiere of Dickey's children's play ``Bronwen, the Traw, and the Shape-Shifter,'' which is running through March 15.

Actress Bridget Hanley, who knew Dickey the last five years of his life, thinks ``Deliverance'' left a formidable but skewed impression of the author she describes as both ``the wildest and the gentlest of men.'' Dickey died in January 1997, at age 73, after battling lung cancer.

``At his memorial (service), they said he had wanted to be known as an American poet,'' recalls Hanley, who performs all the roles in Theatre West's production.

``That's what he wanted to be and that's what he was. But because of the incredible publicity that `Deliverance' received, the novel and the movie, that's what he was'' - Hanley gropes for the right word - ``not branded with, because he was very proud of it.''

Superficially, the world of ``Bronwen'' seems miles removed from ``Deliverance,'' a chilling fable about four Atlanta businessmen whose weekend canoe trip takes a disastrous swerve.

Still, ``Bronwen'' has its own dark obsessions and subliminal undercurrents.

Director John Gallogly calls it ``a story told through verse and music of a young girl's battle with the dark forces of the night.'' Its heroine, named after Dickey's young daughter, gets enlisted by a kingdom of flying squirrels to rid themselves of the Shape-Shifter, a metaphysical boogie man Dickey described as ``like the wrong side of brightness.'' In combating the Shape-Shifter, Bronwen confronts her own transition from childhood to womanhood.

``It's a lovely story about courage, and without courage the all-dark reigns,'' says actress Hanley.

``We say (the play's audience) is from 8 to adult, because we really feel that we don't want to be responsible for introducing the darkness to children unless they have already felt it. I just feel that children have to grow up too fast anyway now. I wouldn't want to frighten a child before they're ready to handle it.''

Dickey once was poet in residence at San Fernando Valley State College, now California State University, Northridge. Hanley first met him in 1992 while reading for a part in one of his plays. She remembers being so nervous that at the end of a read-through, ``I kneeled down in front of him and I said, `Are we still friends?' And he said, `My dear, you are an artist.' And we were fine from then on.''

She describes the late author as ``a man's man'' with ``quite an eye for the ladies,'' and as a brutally honest yet steadfast friend.

Recalling a poem called ``The Drift Spell,'' which Dickey wrote for one of his sons after his first wife died, Hanley says it's hard to think of Dickey himself now drifting through that other-worldly passage.

``But we feel so fortunate to be able to spread his words.''

``Bronwen, the Traw, and the Shape-Shifter'' runs at 12:30 p.m. every Sunday. Tickets are $8. The theater is at 3333 Cahuenga Blvd. W., between Hollywood Bowl and Universal Studios. Running time is one hour. For information and reservations, call [phone].

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PHOTO (1 -- 2) Bridget Hanley, top, in ``Bronwen, the Traw, and the Shape-Shifter,'' thinks ``Deliverance,'' with Burt Reynolds, above, left a formidable but skewed impression of the author she describes as both ``the wildest and the gentlest of men.''