Act I
Buried Child occurs in a single setting: the large downstairs living room of a dilapidated Midwestern farmhouse. The creaky old estate is occupied by an odd, eccentric, and often frightening family who are removed from any traces of civilization outside. At the beginning of the play, Dodge, the clan’s leader, is lying on a dingy old sofa, half-asleep, watching a television with no sound. As he listens to the rainfall outside, he begins to cough, tries to stifle his hacking with a slug of whiskey from a hidden bottle, and manages to stifle his choking only when his wife, Halie, calls to him from upstairs.
The opening dialogue between Dodge and the unseen Halie, though relatively short, provides a great deal of important exposition in a play that requires careful attention to clues and minor details. The plot of Buried Child, like most of Shepard’s plays, is not often simple and direct but unfolds in a series of strange encounters and unsettling symbols.
Halie and Dodge, though married for quite a few years, seem estranged. She remains upstairs, except when she leaves the house. He seems to dwell downstairs, on the sofa, and he never goes out. He drinks, smokes, wears filthy clothes, and watches television almost constantly. She seems to have a preachy, religious streak in her, advocates propriety, and nags her lumpish husband incessantly.
Still, Halie, like almost all the characters in the play at one time or another, recalls the past, a time when things seemed more exciting, more normal. Remembering a day she once spent at the horse races, Halie says, “Everything was dancing with life! Colors. There were all kinds of people from everywhere. Everyone was dressed to the nines. Not like today. Not like they dress today. People had a sense of style.” It is obvious from the very beginning of the play that something happened to this family — something mysterious, secret, and tragic — that has forever altered their lives.
While Halie continues ranting from upstairs, and Dodge lapses into one of his coughing fits, their eldest son, Tilden, appears with an armload of corn which, he claims, he just picked from the field out back.
In spite of Dodge’s protests that he never planted any corn, and that the produce was probably stolen from a neighbor’s farm, Tilden pulls up a stool, puts down a milk pail, and begins husking the vegetables. While he works, Dodge questions him about his plans for the future. Apparently, Tilden has been away from home for more than twenty years, off in New Mexico by himself, and has only recently reappeared. Dodge seems eager to send him on his way again — an anxiety that begins to make sense later in the play, when Tilden’s earlier illicit relationship with his mother surfaces.
Meanwhile, from upstairs, Halie continues her oration. She calls down to warn Dodge that they must care for Tilden, since he can no longer care for himself. Halie remembers the glory days of Tilden’s youth, when he was an All-American football player and the family had such high hopes for his future. His younger brother, Bradley, they felt, was destined to fail, and all their dreams would come alive in Tilden. When Tilden turned out to be troublesome, Halie continues, they staked their hopes on Ansel, the youngest of the boys who, Halie claims, may not have been as handsome, but was by far the smartest. She rambles on about Ansel’s accomplishments as a basketball player and a soldier, mourns his tragic death in a motel room on the night of his honeymoon, and suggests Father Dewis, their pastor, might help them erect a statue of their fallen son in the town square.
Halie finally descends the stairs. She is dressed completely in black, as though mourning, and on her way to a lunch appointment with Father Dewis. She argues with the two men about the rain outside, the corn on the floor, and Bradley, causing Dodge to complain, “He’s not my flesh and blood! My flesh and blood’s out there in the backyard!” A hush falls over the room. Dodge has spoken the apparently unspeakable in this household. While his comment goes unheeded and unexplained for the time being, it haunts the rest of the play, as the family’s terrible secret is slowly revealed.
Halie finally leaves for her rendezvous with the pastor. Dodge curls up on the sofa and falls asleep. Tilden steals his whiskey and leaves. Then, in the silence that falls over the house, Bradley stomps in through the front door, the hinges of his wooden leg creaking as he walks. He removes Dodge’s baseball cap, plugs in a pair of electric clippers, and begins cutting his father’s hair while he sleeps. The lights fade on the first act.
Act II
Later the same night. Vince, Tilden’s son, appears with his girlfriend, Shelly. They are traveling across the country from New Jersey to see Vince’s father, who they think is still in New Mexico, and have stopped by unannounced to visit Dodge and Halie. They are expecting a joyful family reunion. Instead, they are greeted by the grumpy, drunken Dodge and the distant, half-crazed Tilden, neither of whom seem to recognize Vince.
Dodge hollers for more whiskey and rails about the haircut he was given while he was asleep, which has left him with patchy bald spots and cuts on his scalp. Tilden brings in an armload of freshly picked carrots, which he proceeds to cut and scrape in preparation for dinner. Shelly is initially terrified by the gloomy house and its strange inhabitants. She urges Vince to leave and at least spend the night in a hotel and return the next day. Vince, however, is adamant about staying. He tries to prove he is part of the family by making funny faces and noises he used to make as a child at the dinner table, but his father and grandfather ignore him.
While Vince becomes more and more exasperated, Shelly, oddly enough, is drawn into the fold. She sits down with Tilden and helps him clean the carrots. To clear his head and perhaps restore some sense of normalcy to the scene, Vince agrees to run to the store to fetch more whiskey for Dodge. He pleads with Tilden and Dodge to try to remember who he is while he is gone and assures Shelly that she will be safe in his absence.
Once Vince leaves, Tilden opens up to Shelly. He describes how he, too, used to drive across the country, through the snow and the deserts, admiring the trees and the animals. He, too, once had a sense of adventure. According to Tilden, his life changed with the arrival of a baby in the house — a baby that was quite small and simply disappeared. “We had no service. No hymn. Nobody came,” Tilden laments. Only Dodge knows where the corpse is, he insists.
Shelly, terrified once again, has little time to react to this macabre story of murder and deceit before Bradley comes stomping into the room from outside and immediately bullies Dodge and Tilden into submission. He insults and humiliates his older brother until Tilden scampers offstage. Dodge lies quivering and coughing on the floor while Bradley, to assert his control in the house, orders Shelly to stand still and open her mouth. He places his fingers in her mouth, then drops her coat over Dodge’s head as the scene ends.
Act III
It is the next morning, and a change has come over the household. The rain has stopped, the sun is shining outside, and birds are singing. Bradley has fallen asleep on the sofa, his artificial leg lying nearby, while Dodge leans against the television, using Shelly’s coat as a blanket. Shelly, meanwhile, has suddenly become a nurturing, motherly figure to the ailing Dodge. She emerges from the kitchen, bright and happy, with a bowl of warm soup broth for the man she now calls her “grandpa.” Some things still haven’t changed, however. Dodge is as irascible as ever. He refuses to eat the soup and complains loudly that Vince didn’t return the previous night and probably stole the money he was given to buy Dodge’s whiskey.
While Shelly attempts to calm and care for Dodge, Halie, who was also gone all night, returns home with Father Dewis. She is now wearing a bright yellow dress, with no sign of her black mourning clothes, and carrying an armful of roses. Both Halie and the Father are a little drunk and have obviously been out for a night on the town. Halie attempts to assume her usual position in the house, nagging Dodge, scolding Bradley, and completely ignoring Shelly.
The balance of power shifts again, and Shelly takes a stand. She grabs Bradley’s artificial leg, wielding it like a weapon and leaving the once tyrannical bully helpless and whimpering on the sofa. As the shocked family and pastor listen in amazement, Shelly’s frustrations pour out. She describes what she and Vince had hoped to find — the perfect American family he remembered from his past. She confronts them with what they really are: strangers in their own house who commit murder and bury the bodies in their backyard.
Shelly’s outrage draws a confession from Dodge. Against the wishes of his wife and son, the old man breaks down and explains the family’s gruesome, tragic secret: Years ago, after all the boys were already grown and the family and farm were quite prosperous, Halie unexpectedly became pregnant. She and Dodge hadn’t been sleeping in the same bed for six years, so he knew the child wasn’t his. The baby, it seemed, belonged to Tilden, who would carry the infant through the fields at night, singing to it and telling it stories. Unable to stand the insult or allow a child who wasn’t his own to grow up in his household, Dodge drowned the baby and buried it in the yard.
Halie is mortified that Dodge has allowed the truth to surface and frantically cries for her lost Ansel. “What’s happened to the men in this family!” she screams, “Where are the men!” As if on cue, Vince comes crashing through the screen door, drunk and hurling empty liquor bottles. The prodigal son has returned. As the youngest and strongest of the surviving male children, and the only member of the family who is free of guilt and complicity in the clan’s awful crimes, Dodge immediately declares Vince the heir to the estate. While Dodge screams out his last will and testament, leaving almost everything to his grandson, Vince sets about restoring order to what is now his home.
Shelly finally reaches her breaking point and leaves. “I can’t hang around for this,” she complains to Vince, “I’m not even related.” Vince tosses Bradley’s artificial leg outside, and his now-pathetic uncle crawls out after it. Father Dewis excuses himself from the terrible scene, leaving Halie upstairs crying. Dodge, meanwhile, has quietly died. Vince covers the dead patriarch with a blanket and places Halie’s roses on his chest. Then he takes Dodge’s cap, puts it on, and lies down on the couch, staring at the ceiling. The play has come full circle, with the new man of the house once again stretched out on the sofa.
To complete this final tableau, Halie begins calling to Dodge from upstairs, just as she did at the beginning of the play. She tells him about the fields outside, filled with corn, carrots, and potatoes, miraculously produced by the recent rain and the day’s bright sunshine. While she describes this impossible farmer’s paradise, Tilden enters from outside and slowly walks upstairs, carrying the muddy, rotten corpse of a small baby he has just unearthed from the yard: the buried child.
موضوع: Buried Child Summary 
الثلاثاء مايو 26, 2009 5:36 pm
