Date: Fri 07-May-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: DONNAG

Quick Words:

Buried-Child-TheatreWorks

Full Text:

THEATRE REVIEW: Not A Fault To Be Found In New Milford

(with cut)

By Julie Stern

NEW MILFORD -- In 1978, the multi talented actor and playwright Sam Shepard

won the Pulitzer Prize for his drama of guilt in the heartland, Buried Child .

The play was re-written and produced again in 1996 by the highly regarded

Steppenwolf Company.

It is this version which is now on stage at TheatreWorks New Milford, with its

usual high quality sets and costuming and especially strong acting by such

longstanding TheatreWorks stalwarts as Matt McQuail, Mark Feltch, Bill Hughes,

Sonnie Osborne and Marty Fay. Along with newcomers David Vaughan and Kristina

Copeland, there is not a fault to be found with any of them.

However, I wish the play had been a little more like Shepard's highly

entertaining True West , which was put on by DART a few years back, and a

little less like Oklahoma as conceived by Samuel Beckett.

Set in a farmhouse living room whose squalor is reminiscent of Judd Fry's

shack, the play is dominated by a hostile, bitter old man named Dodge. The

family patriarch huddles on the couch, an apparent invalid, berating and

insulting everyone who comes near him, while he sneaks belts of whiskey from a

bottle concealed under the cushions.

His wife, the seemingly prim and prissy Halie, is running off for an evening

of carousing with her boyfriend, the local Lutheran minister Father Dewis,

leaving Dodge to the care of his two weird sons. The hulking Tilden, who was

once an All-American boy now seems lobotomized. The malevolent Bradley, the

second son, has never been the same since he accidentally cut his own leg off

with a chainsaw.

Into this mix comes Tilden's son, Vince, returning after many years to give

his new girlfriend Shelly a glimpse of his roots. Poor Shelly must deal with

the fact that none of the boys seem to have any inkling of who Vince is, and

claim to know nothing about him.

When Dodge sends Vince off to buy more whiskey, it leaves poor Shelly to cope

with this houseful of less-than-attractive potential in-laws.

Enterprising girl that she is, Shelly persists in asking the right questions,

and although the characters suffer from a persistent and absurd case of having

the inability to communicate with one another, the truth of the matter -- the

source of the family dysfunction -- gradually begins to emerge from the

grave...

Matt McQuail is stellar in the pivotal role of Dodge, and Mark Feltch is both

pitiful and strangely appealing as Tilden, who keeps wandering in with

armloads of vegetables he found in the yard, although there hasn't been

anything planted there for twenty years. Kristina Copeland also gave the part

of Shelly some righteous spunk.

The play is never boring, it is fairly riveting, and at times even grimly

funny. The emphasis is on the word "grim," though.

Performances of Buried Child continue Friday and Saturday evenings through May

15. Call TheatreWorks at 350-6863 for ticket details.