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Buried Child
By Sam Shepard
Directed by Hans Fleischmann
Produced by Mary-Arrchie Theatre
At Angel Island
735 W. Sheridan
Chicago, IL
Call 773-871-0442, tickets $18 -$22
Thursdays thru Saturdays at 8PM
Sundays at 3 PM
Running time is 2 hours, 20 minutes with intermission
Through January 29, 2006
“I don’t enjoy anything!” - Dodge
Buried Child a riveting masterpiece
Mary-Arrchie Theatre Co. delivers Sam Shepard’s 1979 Pulitzer Prize winning Buried Child in a chillingly eerie, near perfect production. This is a master work that captures all the macabre and imagery that the enigmatic Sam Shepard presents.
 Filled with excruciating dramatic tension, terror and mystery, director Hans Fleischmann builds from the dramatic opening scene where we meet Dodge (Richard Cotovsky, in a tour de force performance), a sickly old man who squanders his time watching TV, smoking and drinking. After a long silence, his nagging wife, Halie (Molly Reyolds) is off stage doing a monologue that combines comments about her life before marrying Dodge and a running commentary of the family. Dodge shouts back but largely ignores her.
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The set (design byGrant Sabin) depicts a run-down wooden farm house complete with screened-in front porch and a dusty old green couch serves this dysfunctional family saga well. Buried Child deals with a family torn apart by a dark secret that leads all members of the family to psychologically and physically deteriorate moving into delusional behavior. The tension slowly builds as we meet the eldest son, Tilden (Karl Potthoff), a zombie-like character who picks vegetables and seems retarded. He tries to communicate with the nasty, cantankerous Dodge. More tension builds as we wonder what happened to these folks? We see Hollie emerge from her upstairs room in white wig and a stylish black funeral attire. She leaves to meet the reverend. She is delusional and is obsessed with getting a monument to their son who died on his honeymoon in a motel while on leave from the army.
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Enter Bradley (John Fenner Mays), the violent psychotic son with the prosthetic leg who loves to cut Dodge’s hair while he sleeps and you have a mean, hateful clan that puts a new slant on dysfunctional families. We become compelled by the sheer eccentricly weird behavior that speaks to the father-son relationship. The pain and anguish that is eating away at this family hangs in the air. We wonder once more, what happened?
The arrival of Vince (Carlo Lorenzo Garcia) and his girlfriend Shelly (Katlyn Carlson) stirs up the family sending them searching for resolution to their long struggle to deal with their guilt. Vince has trouble understanding why no one seems to know him. When he agrees to fetch a bottle of whisky for Dodge, Shelly stays and tries to learn the family secret. Her quest turns from curiosity to terror when Bradley violently pins her against a wall and demands that she open her mouth wide so he can stick his fingers into her mouth.
By morning Shelly adjusts somewhat to this crazy family but in a startling scene she gets Dodge to reveal the entire family secret. Later when Vince returns drunk, he throws beer bottle after bottle against the porch wall in an amazing temper tantrum. We see Vince revel when he winds out that Dodge has left him the house. The ending scene will send shivers down your spine.
Mary-Arrchie Theatre got it right with Buried Child.Richard Cotovsky and Carlo Lorenzo Garcia were terrific. This is American realism at its powerful best. Suffering, incest, murder, deceit, secrecy and rebirth in the best tradition of Greek tragedy are present in this master work. Don’t miss this show.
Not To Be Missed
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Chicago Stage Talk Radio show
This show eligible for a C.S.T. Non-Equity Theatre Award
November 13, 2005
Jeff Recommended
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