Metro Pulse/Backstage/Buried Child

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What:
Buried Child by Sam Shepard

When:
Oct. 23, 24 & 25, 8 p.m.

Where:
Clarence Brown Theatre

Cost:
$12-$19, $5 UT students w/ ID

Buried Child creates more mysteries than it reveals

by Paige M. Travis

Buried Child is not a conventional narrative play that introduces characters and conflicts and then, in the final scene, resolves the problem or reveals the mystery. Sam Shepard refuses us the traditional catharsis that can result, leaving us feeling something like, "Wow, that was weird."

Shepard's play isn't abstract for the sake of abstraction. It contains meaning and literary conventions like name symbolism, allusion, references to mythology and folklore. Buried Child is deep, but it also takes place completely on the surface; it operates on so many levels and sticks in your mind long after the actors have taken their final bow. But once you've figured out Buried Child enough to really dig in, you're exhausted and ready to go to bed. My suggestion: get to the show early and read the very extensive program notes. In this case, a prepared viewer will be a more satisfied viewer.

Vince and his girlfriend Shelly drive from Los Angeles and stop by the Illinois farm where his grandparents live. He hasn't been around in six or more years, but he expects everything to be the same. Or at least he expects everyone to remember him. They don't. With the whole family at odds with memory and reality, he really shouldn't take it personally.

Dodge, the grandfather, sits on the couch and hacks, his face red and his voice destroyed. His wife Halie talks incessantly, mostly from her upstairs bedroom (evoked on stage by a giant staircase that leads up into the rafters). Their adult son Tilden plods into the house bearing armfuls of corn—corn that Dodge swears doesn't exist (disbelief is the basic essence of Dodge, as suggested by his name). Bradley, the family's other living son, is a one-legged violent maniac who rages about the wrecked state of the house and attacks his own father with hair clippers.

Clearly, this family is an unholy mess. The tragedy of Oedipal proportion that led them to this state is not a complete mystery; it's the title of the play. The details are revealed gradually but with little dramatic tension or fanfare. And what in most plays would be the major payoff—the physical revelation of said buried child's decomposing skeleton—is understated and, by the play's end, almost beside the point. I think that's Shepard's point—that you already know what's going to happen; what happens along the way—the unraveling—is more significant.

The Clarence Brown Theatre deserves credit for tackling such an unconventional play on their main stage; Buried Child could easily have been relegated to the Carousel Theatre, where more abstract or stripped-down productions come to life. CBT's general audience is older, more mainstream, musical-lovers. They're more likely to know Shepard as the actor from Baby Boom and Steel Magnolias than from his plays. Buried Child is challenging to experience, but its main strength is in the performances.

If Shepard is a challenge to watch, he must be damned hard to perform. Where in most plays actors and characters interact with each other, Shepard's family is a group of monologists. They only seem to speak (or yell) at each other. Douglas Hudgins as Dodge practically gives himself an aneurysm with vigorous coughing and rasping. He is the family's patriarch—the root of the evil and the most far gone. He's hard to listen to, as if what he's saying is supposed to be, literally, hard to hear. Carol Mayo-Jenkins is his wife, a surprisingly unmotherly mother who seems to only orbit the house instead of actually live there (who can blame her, really). Halie is obsessed with the memory of her dead son Ansel, who married into a Mob family and got killed on his wedding night. She calls him a "hero" and swears he would've saved the family. Her dialogue seems disjointed at times, and her approach evokes the creepy, woman-child characters of Tennessee Williams. But her tone works according to Shepard's plan: instead of being a fluid creation, the character exists in each moment and must be allowed to be inconsistent if necessary.

David Brian Alley plays Tilden, a former football star who has been rendered autistic by something that happened in New Mexico. (Or maybe he never was in New Mexico. It's hard to say.) Alley, bearded and blank-eyed, captures the character's stillness with a moving internalization of trauma. Bradley, however, expresses his family's burden with abject violence. In his extremity, Ethan T. Bowen is almost comic relief. With all this suppression going on, at least Bradley is acting out in a way that makes some sense. He's vicious and frightening, which seems a realistic and natural response. Jessenia She creates Shelly as a Los Angeles babe who, by turns, is willing to accept this crazy family and then flee when she's had enough. As the only true outsider, she is our representative in this farmhouse, trying to figure out the real story. Collin Martin is convincing as Vince, who is finally recognized as a kind of prodigal son.

Forrest D. Martin is the only piece of the puzzle that doesn't fall into place. Father Dewis, who may or may not be Halie's lover, must figure into the play in some way, but Martin's awkwardness obscures the character's significance.

Director Veronika Nowag-Jones has manipulated the pacing of the play by inserting her husband, jazz bassist Sirone. Sirone plucks his stand-up bass and provides the occasional narration or Greek chorus-like reaction to the play's action. The concept is interesting. Shepard's approach to drama and acting is jazz-like in its structure and philosophy. But there are moments in Buried Child that should be quiet, moments that need time to develop between the characters and the audience. With the near-constant plunking sitcom soundtrack of the bass, such moments aren't allowed. Shepard is already doing so much to subvert our expectations that he might love one more distraction from the traditional arc. But I felt like one more thing was just too much.

In the midst of the sparse, mostly black box-style set, John Horner's lighting is revelatory. The giant rays of sunshine that flood down onto the characters in the second act seem to offer salvation.

Shepard is practically worshipped in certain circles of directors, actors and critics. But for the layman, he's a hard nut to crack. The process of understanding is exhausting, but isn't that one of the trademarks of great literature?