Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Taboo Territory

“No man or woman has ever crossed the line and lived to tell the tale!”

In Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, his people improvise like jazz soloists.
In Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, his people improvise like jazz soloists.

During intermission at New Village Arts’ opening night of Buried Child, a patron said, “I’m confused.”

Another replied, “Don’t worry. You’ve been paying attention.”

Asked to describe what some have called a masterpiece, Sam Shepard joked, “It’s sort of a typical Pulitzer Prize–winning play.” He was half-right. In 1979, Buried Child won the Pulitzer for drama. But typical? Not a chance.

Some characters resemble others: Halie, the mother, sounds like Amanda Wingfield recalling jonquils and gentlemen escorts in The Glass Menagerie. Her half-mute son Tilden — who has either “lost his marbles” or just misplaced them — acts like a cross between Lennie in Of Mice and Men and Biff, the jock gone to seed in Death of a Salesman. Associations flicker behind other characters. But they serve, at best, as entries to a play that severs all ties with the familiar and with attempts to pin its mysteries down.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The first stage direction’s a dead giveaway: Shepard wants stairs going “up to the wings with no landing.”

Like a tour through the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose (where Mrs. Winchester ordered carpenters to build, nonstop, in all directions), Buried Child thrives on contradictions and cul-de-sacs. In fact, it’s as if Shepard hands you the script and says: “Here are the elements of a Pulitzer-worthy drama. You write it. Good hunting.”

Dodge, the decrepit patriarch, says his family has lived on the farm — in Illinois? — 57 years. Long ago, an event entombed the clan in collective amnesia. Dodge, Halie, and sons Tilden and Bradley refuse to remember, but can’t forget, an unthinkable horror. “Everything canceled out by this one mistake,” says the aptly named Dodge (an unartful dodger who can’t escape his past). The family’s so squelched emotionally, they often don’t recognize each other.

Tilden’s son Vince, who’s been away for six years, stops by with girlfriend Shelly. Given his yummy descriptions of the family, she expects Norman Rockwell: “turkey dinners and apple pie.” Instead she stumbles into American Gothic — and beyond. “This is taboo territory,” Vince yells at her toward the end. “No man or woman has ever crossed the line and lived to tell the tale!” And as he shouts the warning, you can almost see an unseen hand yank Vince back into the vortex.

Shelly, the outsider, vows to sleuth the mystery. Something was buried out back, where corn or carrots haven’t grown since 1935 — and are suddenly sprouting. In a sense, she becomes Shepard’s playwright. Good hunting, Shelly.

Nancy Meckler, who directed the play years ago, made an astute comment about Buried Child. “Sam isn’t writing about people who are crazy; he’s writing about people under stress. They’re doing what they’re doing for real reasons, usually avoidance.”

The acting at New Village Arts ranges from some under palpable stress, to some trying desperately to seem crazy. Of the former, Manny Fernandes earned a Craig Noel Award for his portrayal of Lennie in New Village’s Of Mice and Men. As Tilden, Fernandes does an interesting thing — he is Tilden first and foremost: lost, numb, trying to honor the family’s Gag Rule. But he shows flashes of his Lennie, as when Tilden fondles a coat made of rabbit fur. In effect, Shepard and Fernandes doubly reference Lennie — with verbal and visual recollections — then go back about their business.

Fernandes also creates the sense, crucial for doing Shepard, that he hasn’t a clue what comes next. As Dodge, Jack Missett does the opposite. There is nothing spontaneous or internal in this performance. Even the cartoony eye-rolling and relentless mugging look as planned in advance as the heavy red make-up under his eyes. Dodge, like a half-sunk battleship, has been under such pressure he could implode at any moment. Instead, Missett makes him superficially crazy, a goofy second banana.

The other performances fall somewhere in between. Kelly Iverson — who has grown as an actor! — does some fine work as Shelly, though she could kick her ferocity up another notch when the time comes. On opening night, Adam Brick found Vince’s leonine ferocity at the end.

In the late ’70s, Shepard used what he called a “halfway in the dark” style. He created “open” characters, with no through-line, and composed by intuition, not knowing where he would go next. He had the craft to structure the play as he went, but his people improvise like jazz soloists.

One of his best “halfway” characters, Halie, rarely appears onstage. She’s a voice beyond the end of the stairs, and her words beam on and off like a lighthouse. Or should. The usually reliable Dana Case hurries through Halie’s sentences and omits the spaces in between.

Shepard gives explicit, detailed, even fussy stage directions. Tim Wallace’s scenic and sound designs match them. Aided by Chris Renda’s ominous lighting, the set looks as dilapidated — and near death — as Dodge. Grimy, broken slats for walls and beat-up furniture locate the set somewhere between real and abstract, or, in Shepard’s terminology, “halfway in the dark.” ■

Buried Child, by Sam Shepard

New Village Arts Theatre, 2787 B State Street, Carlsbad

Directed by Lisa Berger; cast: Jack Missett, Dana Case, Manny Fernandes, Samuel Sherman, Kelly Iverson, Adam Brick, John DeCarlo; scenic and sound design, Tim Wallace; lighting, Chris Renda; costumes, Kristianne Kurner and Allyson Francis

Playing through April 22; Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Matinee Saturday at 3:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. 760-433-3245

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

The greatest symphonist of them all

Havergal Brian wrote over 30 of them
Next Article

Time’s up for Doubletime Recording Studio

Owner Jeff Forrest is trading El Cajon for Portugal
In Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, his people improvise like jazz soloists.
In Sam Shepard’s Buried Child, his people improvise like jazz soloists.

During intermission at New Village Arts’ opening night of Buried Child, a patron said, “I’m confused.”

Another replied, “Don’t worry. You’ve been paying attention.”

Asked to describe what some have called a masterpiece, Sam Shepard joked, “It’s sort of a typical Pulitzer Prize–winning play.” He was half-right. In 1979, Buried Child won the Pulitzer for drama. But typical? Not a chance.

Some characters resemble others: Halie, the mother, sounds like Amanda Wingfield recalling jonquils and gentlemen escorts in The Glass Menagerie. Her half-mute son Tilden — who has either “lost his marbles” or just misplaced them — acts like a cross between Lennie in Of Mice and Men and Biff, the jock gone to seed in Death of a Salesman. Associations flicker behind other characters. But they serve, at best, as entries to a play that severs all ties with the familiar and with attempts to pin its mysteries down.

Sponsored
Sponsored

The first stage direction’s a dead giveaway: Shepard wants stairs going “up to the wings with no landing.”

Like a tour through the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose (where Mrs. Winchester ordered carpenters to build, nonstop, in all directions), Buried Child thrives on contradictions and cul-de-sacs. In fact, it’s as if Shepard hands you the script and says: “Here are the elements of a Pulitzer-worthy drama. You write it. Good hunting.”

Dodge, the decrepit patriarch, says his family has lived on the farm — in Illinois? — 57 years. Long ago, an event entombed the clan in collective amnesia. Dodge, Halie, and sons Tilden and Bradley refuse to remember, but can’t forget, an unthinkable horror. “Everything canceled out by this one mistake,” says the aptly named Dodge (an unartful dodger who can’t escape his past). The family’s so squelched emotionally, they often don’t recognize each other.

Tilden’s son Vince, who’s been away for six years, stops by with girlfriend Shelly. Given his yummy descriptions of the family, she expects Norman Rockwell: “turkey dinners and apple pie.” Instead she stumbles into American Gothic — and beyond. “This is taboo territory,” Vince yells at her toward the end. “No man or woman has ever crossed the line and lived to tell the tale!” And as he shouts the warning, you can almost see an unseen hand yank Vince back into the vortex.

Shelly, the outsider, vows to sleuth the mystery. Something was buried out back, where corn or carrots haven’t grown since 1935 — and are suddenly sprouting. In a sense, she becomes Shepard’s playwright. Good hunting, Shelly.

Nancy Meckler, who directed the play years ago, made an astute comment about Buried Child. “Sam isn’t writing about people who are crazy; he’s writing about people under stress. They’re doing what they’re doing for real reasons, usually avoidance.”

The acting at New Village Arts ranges from some under palpable stress, to some trying desperately to seem crazy. Of the former, Manny Fernandes earned a Craig Noel Award for his portrayal of Lennie in New Village’s Of Mice and Men. As Tilden, Fernandes does an interesting thing — he is Tilden first and foremost: lost, numb, trying to honor the family’s Gag Rule. But he shows flashes of his Lennie, as when Tilden fondles a coat made of rabbit fur. In effect, Shepard and Fernandes doubly reference Lennie — with verbal and visual recollections — then go back about their business.

Fernandes also creates the sense, crucial for doing Shepard, that he hasn’t a clue what comes next. As Dodge, Jack Missett does the opposite. There is nothing spontaneous or internal in this performance. Even the cartoony eye-rolling and relentless mugging look as planned in advance as the heavy red make-up under his eyes. Dodge, like a half-sunk battleship, has been under such pressure he could implode at any moment. Instead, Missett makes him superficially crazy, a goofy second banana.

The other performances fall somewhere in between. Kelly Iverson — who has grown as an actor! — does some fine work as Shelly, though she could kick her ferocity up another notch when the time comes. On opening night, Adam Brick found Vince’s leonine ferocity at the end.

In the late ’70s, Shepard used what he called a “halfway in the dark” style. He created “open” characters, with no through-line, and composed by intuition, not knowing where he would go next. He had the craft to structure the play as he went, but his people improvise like jazz soloists.

One of his best “halfway” characters, Halie, rarely appears onstage. She’s a voice beyond the end of the stairs, and her words beam on and off like a lighthouse. Or should. The usually reliable Dana Case hurries through Halie’s sentences and omits the spaces in between.

Shepard gives explicit, detailed, even fussy stage directions. Tim Wallace’s scenic and sound designs match them. Aided by Chris Renda’s ominous lighting, the set looks as dilapidated — and near death — as Dodge. Grimy, broken slats for walls and beat-up furniture locate the set somewhere between real and abstract, or, in Shepard’s terminology, “halfway in the dark.” ■

Buried Child, by Sam Shepard

New Village Arts Theatre, 2787 B State Street, Carlsbad

Directed by Lisa Berger; cast: Jack Missett, Dana Case, Manny Fernandes, Samuel Sherman, Kelly Iverson, Adam Brick, John DeCarlo; scenic and sound design, Tim Wallace; lighting, Chris Renda; costumes, Kristianne Kurner and Allyson Francis

Playing through April 22; Thursday through Saturday at 8:00 p.m. Matinee Saturday at 3:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. 760-433-3245

Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

How Much Time Do I Get With My BetterHelp Therapist?

Next Article

San Diego Fix it Clinic, Gaslamp Holiday Pet Parade

Events December 14-December 18, 2024
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader