The 1996 Broadway production of Buried Child certainly lived up to and past expectations. It was a moody, slow, and very dark production, quite true to Sam Shepard’s script and his depiction of American 70’s rural decay. The setting was greatly taken into consideration in the production of this play. The grime and decay were very well depicted, with the dirt and stains on Dodge’s clothes and blankets, as well as the rest of the furniture and the floor. James Gammon powerfully plays a frail man greatly burdened by a very large secret. Tilden’s emotions are very effectively conveyed by Terry Kinney, showing how even more broken he had become after the murder of his son. He is very visibly upset at Dodge, screaming to Shelly and the audience that “He won’t tell any of us!” referring to what happened to his child. Bradley’s violent and brutal behavior is also incredibly well established, with his exertion of dominance over Tilden, Shelly, and Dodge.

Time has passed this family by. None of them recognize the way things used to be prior to the secret. When the photographs of him were pointed out to be hanging upstairs, he replied with the words, “I am me.” and said that he never was that person. Traditional family values have entirely been eroded from this family. Dodge, the patriarch, head of household, has been removed from this position and is left entirely at the mercy of his family. He is treated as entirely incapable by his wife, Halie, to the point where she is having an affair with the Reverend, and while we don’t know, but one can assume that her behavior started prior to this affair, as the baby was born of an incestuous relationship with Tilden. In addition, he is humiliated and taken advantage of by his violent son Bradley, who cuts Dodge’s head harshly while shaving his hair. He realizes with sadness that this is happening, stating near the end of the play that if he were to die right then and there nobody would notice.

The family is so overrun by shame that they have accepted this dysfunctional state as the status quo. They pretend that the secret never exists while it clearly eats at them every single day. This fact is only realized by Shelly, the outsider. Seeing the performance was very different from reading the script itself. The dramatic and dark undertones and emotions are so much more visible and powerful, with the character’s agony being felt more greatly. All in all, many seemingly small lines and set pieces are brought to life, things that could be missed while simply reading the script. The performance brought power and perspective to the words.

Buried Child by Sam Shephard is a play that revels in its darkness, sense of confinement, and challenges societal expectations of what family is meant to be. The death of the American Dream is a clear and present theme in this shocking play and this is embodied in a different manner in each of the characters. It’s important to recognize the setting of the play, which is an Illinois farmhouse in complete disrepair, in the 1970’s, an era of American history noted for the socioeconomic decline of much of rural America as well as a backdrop of general discontent and “malaise”. Throughout the play, references to a lack of crops and a general notion of poverty are actively present. This context is emphasized in not only the physical house that the play is occurring in – where we see knickknacks strewn everywhere, a seriously old couch, and other worn-down furniture – but in the fundamental flaws in the characters as well as what they stand for. We can see the fall of what is traditional American morality centered around a father figure and tight-knit family. Dodge has abandoned his role as the patriarch of the family, rather he is simply an immobile, helpless figure which is something that is blatantly obvious from the beginning of the play to the end. Rather, the role is reversed and he is actively dependent on much of his family which can be seen in his sloth, bitterness, and desperation for more alcohol when Tilden ends up drinking his bottle while he’s asleep. Instead of being a major figure of the family, he appears more of an emotional drain, a rebuke of how people picture the father when they see a stereotype of the American dream.

This betrayal is also obvious in one of the major plot arcs of the play, which is Hallie’s incestuous encounter with Tilden, her son as well as the killing of their subsequent baby by Dodge. She betrays the notion of the caring mother, which appears to have had severe emotional repercussions on Tilden, who himself appears to be mentally delayed. Bradley, Tilden’s brother and Hallie and Dodge’s son, is also seen as a dark figure, someone who has lost use of a foot, and appears to be an aggressive and angry bully. Hallie beckons this end of the American Dream, by reminiscing about it, which I believe is symbolized in her constant recalling of her dead son, Ansel, who she often talks about creating a monument for. I believe she so badly wants to leave her current reality, she longs for any distraction or thought of a better time. The notion of morality in religiosity in the context of a generalization of America is also shattered which we can see in Father Dewis having an affair with a married woman, and then in the heat of a great domestic struggle, fails to provide any significant or any guidance whatsoever. Even Vince and his girlfriend Shelley, who appear to be individuals that appealed to the audience’s need for some level of optimism in the play, are sucked into the doom of the fall of Dodge’s household. Throughout the course of their time there, they separated and Vince himself appears to have resigned himself to a position at the broken home, giving up, perhaps a symbol that this fall of the American Dream as can be seen by the shattering of this household, is like a tree whose roots can still hold down the branches that reach out furthest.

The play Buried Child has many dark, gruesome, and depressing undertones. After watching the 1996 production of Buried Child, many parts of Sam Shepard’s play came to life. The way actors portray the characters, express the lines, and capture the essence of the play truly gives a greater understanding and appreciation towards it. For example, the portrayal of the characters completed the image I previously developed and captured Sam Shepard’s requests perfectly. The way Hallie was yelling at Dodge, Tilden, Bradley, and Shelly portrays Hallie as a person who believes she is always in the right. There was never a moment she thought she was wrong or gave even the slightest bit of attention to another character. As she spoke, she did not expect others to listen to her, she just talked to herself so she could express how great she is in comparison to the rest of her family. She truly believes that everybody in the house is crazy except for herself. Tilden is another character that, when seeing on stage, completed the image Sam Shepard created. Tilden does not talk too much, but his movements and the tone in his voice when he does say something encapsulate him. He seeks out attention and love from others because he lost what he loved; his child. In addition, the movements done by Tilden play a significant role in the play. For example, when Tilden went over to Shelly and held her jacket, he cradled it like a baby. Seeing this action done in person gives a whole new idea to the play. It not only gives a deeper meaning to what Tilden will say about his child, but it also shows how badly Tilden wants to love something again. Finally, in the 1996 production, one can see just how dependent Dodge is on others. The stage opens up to him and one can see just how dirty, scrappy, and weak he looks. He depends on Tilden to take care of him. This dependency even angers him to a certain degree because he used to be an independent man who ran a beautiful farm and had a great family. In the production, one can see how he represents his distress and anger through his shouting, flailing of limbs, and facial expression. He hates what he has become. There were moments in the play where he would hide under the blanket in order to not be seen. He would much rather not exist than need people to keep him alive. All in all, seeing the production gave a greater sense of what Sam Shephard wanted to portray.

The 1996 production of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child truly gives life to such dark themes present in the play, through not only a humorous lens but a psychoanalytic and emotional one as well. It’s clearly focused on a disorientated family who speak to the reality of American Life, leaving the American Dream as a dream. Each character seems to embody a type of a flaw which they’ve left define them leading to their own deterioration whether it be health or mere human morals. And the play is directed in such an intimate way where the audience is pulled into the life of this family. Having it be set in one setting it compels the audience to pay attention to little details such as the holes in the blanket, the worn down couch and lamp, stained wallpaper, and this portrays their financial status and care to the home. The one setting also gives this feeling of claustrophobia, confinement a frustration, having to be trapped in such a chaotic environment and this subjects the viewer to the abuse the characters impose on one another. Additionally seeing the play visually made me notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise, for example, Dodge barely moves from the couch and he’s just as immobile and helpless as his power is in the house.  We barely see Halie in much of the play paralleling to how she’s not as present in the life of her family either. Even when she’s in the house the viewers barely see her too, all she is is a voice from the stairs. Tilden does the most incomprehensive things, putting corn on Dodge, bringing random vegetables and just as we don’t understand him, he doesn’t seem to understand himself either but this mental burden goes unnoticed by a mask of humor, and we see his family members do the same. Just like many of the other characters we see Bradley run away from reality, it’s clear he’s handicapped but is also depicted as the most powerful that is until his leg is taken away from him and it’s like a slap across the face for him. Now they say family is the biggest support system and the most influential, for this family support doesn’t seem to be in the dictionary but influential most definitely. It’s clear that their deterioration is brought upon themselves because they’ve influenced each other that way. When the two “strangers” come in, Vince and Shelly it doesn’t take them long for their actions to mirror the rest of the family’s. Vince and Shelly do attempt to make sense of the situation and bring order to the house but get buried under the same disconnection. The play stands to amplify the absurdity of the American Dream, how pressurizing yet unattainable it is to achieve all aspects of it, and he brings this idea through Ansel. Ansel who is meant to present the ideal man is dead because just like the ideal man he doesn’t exist.

The 1996 production on Buried Child added a new dimension to Sam Shepherd’s play, in that the printed words from the dialogue were brought to life with the employment of human expression and body language. The characters were given faces, and their conversations were given voice. When the play began with the scene between Hallie and Dodge, my first thought was that their voices annoyed me. The grating yelling of Hallie accompanied by Dodge’s hoarse cough-laden speech made me grind my teeth; I did not experience such strong emotions when I was reading the script in my head. I pictured small things individually, as they were described in the stage directions, but I realized when taking in the entirety of the stage that my imaginings were not vivid enough. Little things like a hole in the blanket would catch my attention suddenly, and this served to further cement me in the moment; it drew me into the scene in a way that the script couldn’t. Intonations in the language were not something I considered very much when reading the dialogue, but when they were present in the play I understood that they added vibrancy to the story and further distinguished the characters in my mind. Their personalities were amplified through facial expressions and bodily mannerisms, and my interpretations on the personas described in the script became clearer. Tilden was the one who affected me the most with his facial expressions, I felt that out of all the other characters his eyes held the most emotion. Their distant, glazed look emphasized his muddled mental state, which I felt made his lines more powerful as he delivered them. It was also the noises on the stage that added life to the script; the banging of the doors, the sounds of Bradley’s Heavy prosthetic leg stomping about, and the movements up and down the stairs all made the fake set look lived in. The addition of all these elements filled in the spaces between the lines of the dialogue, and gave a more concrete image to the concept of “family.”

I feel as though the 1996 production of Buried Child successfully captures the play by Shephard. It accurately portrays the characters and the tone of the play. Much of this was due to the actors. They captured their respective characters so well that I felt like I was watching a family discussion that I shouldn’t be a witness to – like when your friend’s parents begin yelling at them while you’re at their house and you want to be anywhere but there at that moment. They depicted the dark and uncomfortable quality of the household very well.

The first interaction we encounter, is a scream-off between Dodge and Hallie. Dodge’s gruff voice while yelling to Hallie in the other room shows how weak and vulnerable he is while the way spit flies out of his mouth while coughing makes his weakness and vulnerability much more realistic. The speed at which Tilden talks shows how he not only “wasted away” physically but mentally, too. Had the actor talked at a normal pace, it wouldn’t have had the same effect. Seeing the look on Vince’s face when his family fails to recognize him makes the situation feel even more uncomfortable than it was when I imagined his expression.  The way he could appear so nonchalant while dangling his uncle’s wooden leg over his head. The script may have given them their lines but the way it was executed them and their interactions is what allowed the production to successfully portray the dark tone of Shephard’s play.