books:

	• Buried Child Sam Shepard Vintage, 2006 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

The familes dysfunction is depicted in a disturbing climax. The title depicts the family's metaphorical "skeletons in the closet" in a quite literal way.

Be prepared, this is not your usual drama. If you enjoy the absurd, you've come to the right place.

for more information click here

Wacky, bizarre and very entertaining!

It's clear to see why Buried Child won the 78-79 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play borders on theatre of the absurd with it's illogical circumstances, and bizarre plot. We learn soon that a baby was buried, but we are entertained as the story processes and unfolds through the eyes of this dysfunctional family. The conflict is between the need to reveal the truth, and refusal to speak about the truth. A visitor to the home causes the revealing of the truth.


Dodge is a sickly 70ish year old drinker, smoker and frequently has violent coughing outbursts. Married to Halie, 65 year old, they have 3 boys. Halie spends time (tipsy time) with the church Father.

Tilden, the oldest, shows up after 20 years, spent time in jail and got run out of New Mexico. Tilden was an All-American quarterback or fullback, the family can't remember which. Now he is mixed up in the head and can't take care of himself.

Bradley, they determine isn't very bright; he chopped his leg with a chainsaw. Bradley has serious conflict with Dodge.

And Ansel, the soldier who died in a motel, on his honeymoon with the Catholic Italian girl, the mob. Haley swears he was doomed when he married her. Ansel played basketball and could have made money, could have taken care of Dodge and Halie.

Father Dewis just tries to mediate. For Halie, he would erect a statue of Ansel with a rifle in one hand and a basketball in the other.

Vince, the grandson, Tilden's son arrives after 6 years and nobody recognizes him. He is symbolic of the buried unwanted child.

Shelly, Vince's girlfriend is thrust into this bizarre scenario, and it is she who becomes the focus of the unveiling truth of the child.

The most prominent symbolism in Buried Child is the rain, and how the vegetables in the field have grown. The rain is mentioned a lot, and it serves to be the nuturing of the vegetables, like nuturing the family for the truth.

This play is brilliant, engaging, and very entertaining. The dialogue is real, paces well and there are a few lengthy monologues. Like good literature, it requires a second reading. Don't skip that.......MzRizz

for more information click here

for more information click here

A two-fold level in Buried Child

There might be some people who tend to think of Buried Child as an elusive play, for there are a lot of actions they don't quite understand. Nevertheless, I think something is weird because Shepard's focus is not simply on the realistic level, but on the symbolic level as well. The backyard in this play, for one, is conveying this two-fold level. On the one hand, it is physically a backyard as many people have in real life. It is, on the other, a mysterious place inasmuch as there is no detailed description of the place, yet a few significant events all so happen to take place at the backyard. That is, growing crops and burying the child is all relating to the backyard. In my opinion, there are many other actions and events that have such a two-fold meaning in this play.

for more information click here

The play can be read(/performed) as comedy rather than existentialist tragedy, especially since it sputters out rather than achieving catharsis. It seems to me that Harold Pinter's "The Homecoming" is a more effective vision of a similar return "home" to a viper's next and that the third act of "Buried Child" would be better if Shelly established her dominance rather than Vince inheriting the place after Dodge's (perhaps unreliable) confession.

for more information click here

A newly revised edition of an American classic, Sam Shepard?s Pulitzer Prize?winning Buried Child is as fierce and unforgettable as it was when it was first produced more than twenty-five years ago. A scene of madness greets Vince and his girlfriend as they arrive at the squalid farmhouse of Vince?s hard-drinking grandparents, who seem to have no idea who he is. Nor does his father, Tilden, a hulking former All-American footballer, or his uncle, who has lost one of his legs to a chain saw. Only the memory of an unwanted child, buried in an undisclosed location, can hope to deliver this family

for more information click here

hot

or

not?

What's your opinion?     Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Family Dynamics in Great Theatre Plays
Unique, Enjoyable Lesser-Known Plays!

buried

	Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From ... Disney's Little Einsteins: Pirate's Treasure (Little Einsteins) Feelings Buried Alive Never Die Sam Shepard : Seven Plays (Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, ... Pompeii...Buried Alive! (Step-Into-Reading, Step 4)

child

	The Count of Monte Cristo The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Lonesome Dove Ella Enchanted