Exhuming the past

The Segal Centre’s production of Sam
Shepard’s Buried Child is dark and engaging

SURVIVING THE REUNION: Adrienne Gould and Randy Hughson

By NEIL BOYCE

Ten years into a prolific career as a playwright and musician, Sam Shepard brought his 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Buried Child to the stage and made his name.

The current Segal Centre co-production with the National Arts Centre in Ottawa (a partnership first for the Segal) is a vivid and hard-edged look at a broken family and its murky history. Peter Hinton directs the story set in the American Midwest that begins in a ramshackle farmhouse.

The past has a death grip on a family filled with simmering violence and bone-deep resentments. Dodge (in a stellar performance by David Fox) is the babbling alcoholic grandfather, “an evil, spiteful, vengeful man” lying on the couch, pulling a ratty red blanket over him as he yells “who took my bottle!” Halie (Clare Coulter), the distant, harridan matriarch, goes on drinking binges and fawns over local minister Father Dewis (John Koensgen), himself a slimy and ineffectual spectator to the freakish scene.

The offspring are hardly better. Tilden (Randy Hughson), once an all-American footballer, is now a stumbling, barely coherent idiot; Bradley (Alex Ivanovici) has lost a leg to a chainsaw and likes to shear off granddad’s hair as he sleeps. Into the volatile midst strolls Vince (Christie Watson), a grandson none of them recognizes or remembers, and his girlfriend Shelly (Adrienne Gould), who hopes only to survive the night as she asks, “What happened to this family anyway?”

The dark message spelled out in the title of Shepard’s brilliant work is unearthed with an unwanted newborn, an act of incest and a nearly forgotten spot somewhere on the farm. “Beneath the mythology of Norman Rockwell,” says Hinton, “lies buried secrets that are both absurdly upheld and dangerously exposed.”

Hinton paces the material well, coaxing great work from his cast—most notably Ivanovici and Hughson—in a three-act play that engages from the start.

Troy Slocum’s ominous sound design makes even a background of cricket chirps feel unsettling, while Eo Sharp’s set provides a moody look for the monsters contained within. A scrim behind the back porch makes the skeletal house seem perched on the edge of oblivion—everything fading into an obscure, grey fog.

LOOKING FOR LOVE

Alan’s Search for the Best Girl in Montreal is Adam Kelly’s newest work, a refreshing change of course from the actor-playwright who brought you the Polytechnique massacre in The Anorak.

The (thinly disguised) autobiographical play looks at the hapless Alan Norton and his quest for the “ideal woman.” Spanning 20 years, Alan’s Search... is a sex comedy set in Montreal, following its protagonist as he seeks his soul mate: from the West Island to the Plateau, and on to Toronto, Vancouver, Paris and New York. Oh, and all this time, his mom lives under his bed, commenting on her boy’s misadventures.

“I’ve had a lot of love relationships,” Kelly says immodestly. “I’ve been single my whole life—never been married, never had any kids—and I wanted to create something that talked about the significant aspects of my relationships...it’s confessional, way too confessional.”

Kelly cites Charles Bukowski’s book Women as a primary influence for this surreal work that, while poetic and playful, is still basically a comedy. “I don’t think the audience will be uncomfortable,” says Kelly. “I think they’ll enjoy watching me fail.”

BURIED CHILD TO FEB. 22 AT THE
SEGAL CENTRE (5170 CÔTE-STECATHERINE),
(514) 739-7944
ALAN’S SEARCH FOR THE BEST GIRL
IN MONTREAL, FEB. 12–14 & 19–21
AT THEATRE 314
(10 DES PINS W., #314), (514) 501-3232