I'm starting to think Sam Shepard is a modern-day
Tennessee Williams. Both write dark and tragic family stories, Williams focusing on Southern families, while Shepard's play have a modern Western feel (in tone if not geography). Shepard's first big hit was the 1978 Off-Broadway play
Buried Child, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama.
Red Bird Theatre (a company previously unknown to me) is presenting this dark and twisted masterpiece as part of Southern Theater's ARTshare program, and I loved it. I'm not sure why, but the darker and more depressing a play is, the happier it makes me. Walking out of the theater after a Sunday matinee, it just felt wrong that the sun was shining on a beautiful day, and it took me a few minutes to shake the darkness off my shoulders. But what a wonderful experience; a terrific cast and excellent production of this darkly poetic and deeply disturbing American classic.
