How
best to tackle the fundamental mystery of Sam Shepard’s Buried Child? For being a play filled with a good deal of realism (“slice-of-life”
dialogue, realistic setting and characters, etc.), there exist certain elements
within the play that don’t quite fit in with the common definition of
theatrical realism. Part of this has to do with the ambiguities that lie at the
center of Buried Child; they drive
the action of the play but are never fully explained by the characters’
dialogue or the stage directions written by Shepard.
Each
act includes the introduction of a particular mystery into Dodge’s farmhouse
that leads to confusion and, as a result, intense conflict between the members
of the family. In the first act, Tilden brings in a huge armful of corn from
the fields behind the house and deposits them all over Dodge. Naturally, the
patriarch of the family is confused by this because no crops have grown or been
planted since the 1930’s, leading Dodge to wonder if Tilden has stolen the
corn. A similar event happens in act II when Tilden brings in a large number of
carrots and has Shelly skin them, presumably so they can be eaten later. When
Bradley enters the house later in the act, he is outraged to find an intruder
in his home as well as the vegetables that Tilden has brought into the house.
However,
the mystery at the center of Buried Child
is the actual child buried in the yard behind the farmhouse that Tilden
brings upstairs at the end of act III. Although its true identity is never
revealed, leaving the mystery up for debate long after the curtain has fallen,
Dodge drops hints that the child was the result of an incestuous union between
Tilden and Halie. Even more mysterious than the child’s identity is the
circumstances of its death. Did Dodge actually drown his son's own flesh and blood? Or is there another truth that refuses to reveal
itself?
Despite
being mostly realistic, the ambiguity that pervades Shepard’s Buried Child gives the play an almost
dreamlike or surreal atmosphere that refuses to be ignored.
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2 comments:
I couldn't agree more with your statement that Buried Child's contradictions make it dreamlike. The surrealness of Buried Child has nothing to do with fantasy, magic, or theatricality--it's all illogical (or dream-logical) contradictions. It's essentially the exact opposite of something like, say, True Blood, which is set in what is supposed to be the same world as that of the audience (only with VAMPIRES!). In Buried Child, though, the world looks the same as ours, but it has fundamentally different universal and logical qualities, which is much more unsettling. For this reason, I don't think one can treat Buried Child like realism. I think it's an entirely different universe that is masquerading as realism.
I see exactly what you mean about ambiguity being the biggest thing that takes away from the illusionism in the play. There are so many unanswered questions. I like that you talked about the buried child though, because I didn't even account for that in my post. That is kind of the central ambiguity isn't it?
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