'Buried Child' by Iron Age: Shepard's own American Gothic

In both theme and setting, Sam Shepard's 1978 Buried Child has aged far beyond its shelf life.

In the 1970s, the breakdown of the nuclear family illustrated by this play was just beginning; today, you can't walk a block without passing a survivor of a broken home. The end of the American dream of owning a piece of land, which Shepard depicts in the barren fields of a rundown farm, seems remote compared to the painful economic consequences of the subprime bubble.

And a play about farmers - seriously? The only farmers today's theatergoers are likely to care about are that hipster couple who left their graphic design jobs and remortgaged their Fishtown house to sell overpriced cow-shares from a renovated farm in New Jersey. The alcoholic, adulterous, incestuous failed farm family of Shepard's Pulitzer-winning play holds no similar appeal.

Thankfully, the razor-sharp production by Norristown's Iron Age Theatre turns the taut family drama of this dated piece into a perverse pleasure: that of watching mean-spirited people tear into each other. The solid cast includes Dave Fiebert as Dodge, the clan's decrepit patriarch; his emotionally stunted son Tilden (the excellent Chuck Beishl); and Eric Wunsch as Vince, the long-gone grown grandson who expects to rejoin his family, but finds that no one recognizes him.

The direction, by Randall Wise and John Doyle, evokes much laughter at the play's dark humor as people who should care for one another instead show callous disregard for the consequences of dreadful buried secrets and tragedy. That their malice stems from financial ruin and personal misfortune fails to inspire empathy, or even sympathy.

The decade after Shepard wrote this play still saw nationwide concern about the fate of America's family farms (remember Farm Aid?). Today, protests against agri-giant Monsanto, the debate over genetically modified crops, and Amish stalls in Rittenhouse Square all remind us that our food comes from somewhere. But however much we can enjoy Iron Age's production, we certainly don't want to think it's produced by people like these.

Buried Child

Presented by Iron Age Theatre through April 13 at the Centre Theater, 208 DeKalb St., Norristown.

Tickets: $15-$22. Information: 610-279-1013 or www.ironagetheatre.org.

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