Buried Child - Acting Edition (Acting Edition for Theater Productions)

With enough symbolism to keep a literary student happily busy for weeks, Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-winning play throws you into a surreal world grounded in the decay of the American Dream. The family centered in the drama is dysfunctional, to put it mildly, and is a microcosm of the hopes and eventual destruction of those hopes in America. The action plays out like a combination between American Gothic and Frida Kahlo - based in reality, but little bits here and there remind the audience that they are not in a world structured realistically. Shepard has stunning skills in the way he paints pictures with words. The only gripe is that the motivations of Halie, the matriarch of the family, are never fully developed or explained. Perhaps Shepard's intention was to keep emotions and feelings as buried as the title implies.

It's clear to see why Buried Child won the 78-79 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play borders on theatre of the absurd with it's illogical circumstances, and bizarre plot. We learn soon that a baby was buried, but we are entertained as the story processes and unfolds through the eyes of this dysfunctional family. The conflict is between the need to reveal the truth, and refusal to speak about the truth. A visitor to the home causes the revealing of the truth. Dodge is a sickly 70ish year old drinker, smoker and frequently has violent coughing outbursts. Married to Halie, 65 year old, they have 3 boys. Halie spends time (tipsy time) with the church Father. Tilden, the oldest, shows up after 20 years, spent time in jail and got run out of New Mexico. Tilden was an All-American quarterback or fullback, the family can't remember which. Now he is mixed up in the head and can't take care of himself. Bradley, they determine isn't very bright; he chopped his leg with a chainsaw. Bradley has serious conflict with Dodge. And Ansel, the soldier who died in a motel, on his honeymoon with the Catholic Italian girl, the mob. Haley swears he was doomed when he married her. Ansel played basketball and could have made money, could have taken care of Dodge and Halie. Father Dewis just tries to mediate. For Halie, he would erect a statue of Ansel with a rifle in one hand and a basketball in the other. Vince, the grandson, Tilden's son arrives after 6 years and nobody recognizes him. He is symbolic of the buried unwanted child. Shelly, Vince's girlfriend is thrust into this bizarre scenario, and it is she who becomes the focus of the unveiling truth of the child. The most prominent symbolism in Buried Child is the rain, and how the vegetables in the field have grown. The rain is mentioned a lot, and it serves to be the nuturing of the vegetables, like nuturing the family for the truth. This play is brilliant, engaging, and very entertaining. The dialogue is real, paces well and there are a few lengthy monologues. Like good literature, it requires a second reading. Don't skip that.......Rizzo

There might be some people who tend to think of Buried Child as an elusive play, for there are a lot of actions they don't quite understand. Nevertheless, I think something is weird because Shepard's focus is not simply on the realistic level, but on the symbolic level as well. The backyard in this play, for one, is conveying this two-fold level. On the one hand, it is physically a backyard as many people have in real life. It is, on the other, a mysterious place inasmuch as there is no detailed description of the place, yet a few significant events all so happen to take place at the backyard. That is, growing crops and burying the child is all relating to the backyard. In my opinion, there are many other actions and events that have such a two-fold meaning in this play.

Buried Child is a story of coming home and coming to terms with the past. Sheppard's use of visual imagery and his mastery of simple, stark, but powerful dialog make this one of the better modern American plays. 5 men, 2 women, one set.

A courageous work that deserved the Pulitzer. It's American Theater of the Absurd at its best.The familes dysfunction is depicted in a disturbing climax. The title depicts the family's metaphorical "skeletons in the closet" in a quite literal way. Be prepared, this is not your usual drama. If you enjoy the absurd, you've come to the right place.