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TAG excels in breathing
By John Berger
life into ‘Buried Child’
Special to the Star-BulletinTHINK back to the worst experience you ever had when meeting a significant other's relatives for the first time. Multiply the disaster exponentially and that's what happens to a young woman named Shelly (Betty Sanchez) when her boyfriend, Vince (Brian Fowler), decides to make an unscheduled stop at his grandparents' farm in rural Illinois.
The couple are on their way to New Mexico to visit Vince's father but discover he has fled back to the family farm and is so out of touch with reality that he doesn't even recognize Vince as his son.
"Buried Child": Presented by The Actors Group at the Yellow Brick Studio, 625 Keawe St. Shows are at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays to Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays, through April 2. Tickets are $10. Call 591-7999 for information.
Such is life in middle America as imagined by Sam Shepard in "Buried Child." Shepard's grim and ugly play won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979. Director Brad Powell and a talented cast make it a challenging but fascinating experience in 2000 as The Actors Group presents the drama in the Yellow Brick Studio.
TAG veteran Eric Nemoto gives an impressive performance as Vince's father, Tilden, the fragile eldest son in a mentally unstable family. Tilden is psychologically vulnerable and potentially dangerous. Nemoto infuses the character with an edgy ambience that quickly sets the mood and establishes the fear that bad things are going to happen.
Sam Polson, another TAG veteran, adds an equally memorable performance as Dodge, the family patriarch, who is slowly slipping into senility on a battered couch where he dozes and watches television in a self-administered haze of whiskey and pills.
Dodge has several reasons to be miserable and self-destructive. One of them is his abrasive wife, Halle (Nancy Kunishige), who berates him incessantly from the sanctuary of her bedroom and slips off into town for interludes with an unctuous minister (Gary Kau).
Then there's Bradley (George Russell), Tildon's youngest brother, a vicious bully who lost a leg in an accident with a power saw and enjoys tormenting his ailing father.
A third son, Ansel, died mysteriously in a motel room after marrying a Catholic. Halle wants the town to erect a statue of Ansel holding a basketball in one hand and rifle in the other. Bradley snarls that Ansel never played basketball.
For that matter, where is Tilden getting the vegetables that he brings in out of the rain and dumps on the living room floor? Dodge claims nothing has grown in the field behind the house since 1935. Who do we believe?
This is surely one of Shepard's darkest and most challenging works, and exactly the type of material that Polson and Nemoto do so well. Fowler, Russell and Sanchez provide excellent support.
Polson and Nemoto are particularly good at being "on" even when observing the action at a distance. So is Sanchez, who gives a Po'okela-worthy performance in her TAG debut.
This is not a story to be enjoyed for its content as much as for the quality of the performances. Fowler dominates the final scene with chilling power and effectiveness.
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