Review by Carol Rocamora…

More happens in the wild revival of Curse of the Starving Class, now raising the roof of the Signature Theatre Center, than in a dozen surrounding productions on and off-Broadway combined!  Characters attack each other; there is urination and nudity on stage; the front door of the family home is broken down; windows are smashed; the kitchen is wrecked; there are flying artichokes; the set explodes; smoke and fire fills the air – that’s just for starters.

Oh, and, if you can believe it, there’s a live sheep onstage – for a quite a while, too.  It’s positively enormous, white, and wooly, and you can’t take your eyes off it (nor can you stop laughing from disbelief that it’s even there!)

(Note: The above doesn’t include what happens offstage – a murder, a shooting spree, a car set on fire, arrests, and so on…)

Well, what did you expect?  It’s a Sam Shepard play. 

I went to a performance last week, doubting whether the revival of this 1977 play could be resonant today. After all, so much has transpired since it premiered in London at the Royal Court in 1977 and had its first American production at the Public in 1978.  But my doubts were utterly unfounded.  Its family themes are universal; its sociological themes are painfully contemporary; and its dark prophesy of the fate of America is alarmingly relevant, given what’s happening today.  

One in a series of Shepard’s family dramas (including Buried Child and True West), Curse of the Starving Class features the Tate clan on their farm in California, as they face an existential economic crisis.  Weston, the absent, alcoholic, unemployed, father (Christian Slater) is off on a drunken binge again.  Alone and destitute, Ella the pill-popping mother (played by Calista Flockhart), struggles to manage two unruly teenagers, Wesley (Cooper Hoffman) and Emma (Stella Marcus), who are constantly in violent conflict. (Wesley urinates on Emma’s posters she’s preparing for her 4-H project at school).  There’s nothing to eat in the house, and each character spends time gazing into the empty refrigerator, lamenting the family’s fate.

Desperate, Ella has found a way out.  She has engaged a shifty lawyer named Taylor (Kyle Beltran) to sell the farm, which is rundown from neglect despite son Wesley’s desperate, singlehanded attempt to keep it going.  

Weston finally returns, drunk and violent, bearing with him a bag containing his contribution to the starving household (dozens of desert-grown artichokes) which he loads into the refrigerator.  While he is passed out on the kitchen table, asleep on a pile of laundry, Ella returns.  She violently tosses the artichokes out of the refrigerator and replace them with the groceries that Taylor has bought her.

The struggle between the father and mother for the control of the farm’s sale, and the fate of each family member, constitute the rest of the play. 

Central to this Shepard classic is the mythology of the American frontier, repeated again in True West which followed two years later.  Here, Shepard is writing about the hope and promise of the American West that has been dashed by poverty,  “zombie economics” and “invisible money,” as Wesley describes it, referring to real estate developers, land wheeler/dealers, and dishonest profiteers like Taylor, the sleazy lawyer who swindles both Weston and Ella with separate false deals.  

The loss of that dream has also starved the American family of any hope.  Each of the Tate family members longs to escape from the farm, in search of freedom, fulfillment, and security; Ella, to Europe; Wesley, to Alaska; Weston, to Mexico.  Only the rebellious daughter Emma wants to stay in California and lead a life of crime to support herself.  None of them can leave, though – not until a series of events precipitates the departure of some, and the stranding of others left behind in their so-called “home.”

Seeing Curse of the Starving Class yet once again has reminded me of the richness in symbol and metaphor of Shepard’s plays, not to mention their thrilling theatricality and bold absurdism. The “starving” of lower/middleclass Americans is metaphoric as well as economic, signifying the hunger for dreams of a better life that have been dashed.  Each of the main characters “speaks” to the inside of the refrigerator, whose open door reveals the emptiness of the American Dream.   

In addition, there is also the mythology of the family unit itself, filled with Biblical and Greek/Roman references.  The sheep on the stage is the sacrificial lamb.  The “sins of the father” are reflected in the characters’ corresponding names (Ella the mother, Emma the daughter; Weston the father; Wesley the son).  The return of the absent father Weston conjures up Ulysses and his homecoming.  But instead of being united with a faithful Penelope, Weston finds Ella under the influence of the conniving Taylor. 

There is one graphic symbolic passage, repeated throughout the play.  Wesley tells a story about an eagle who keeps diving down to the ground, trying to swoop up the testes of the lambs he was castrating on the farm. At the play’s conclusion, Wesley attempts to finish the story, describing how the eagle spots a cat circling around the testes.  The eagle snatches up the cat – whereupon they begin struggling in midair.  The eagle tries to drop it, but the cat will not let go, choosing to bring the eagle crashing to the ground even it means that the cat goes down with him.  Is Weston the eagle, and Ella the cat?  Is it a parable about marriage? Or is the eagle America, threatened by competing dark forces?  The fact that Shepard doesn’t explain his metaphors reinforces the fascination of his plays

Director Scott Elliott has added even more fuel to Shepard’s fire, infusing it with antic energy.  Calista Flockhart is excellent as the conflicted Ella, caught in a fight for survival.  Christian Slater plays her dissolute husband Weston with relish, as he remarkably transforms from deadbeat drunkard to would-be provider.  Cooper Hoffman and Stella Marcus also delight in their roles as the sparring brother and sister.  The rest of the cast constitute a stellar ensemble.  And let’s not forget the sheep, played by “Lois,” according to the program (note: actually, the script calls for a lamb, but I guess the casting director got carried away).   Special mention goes to the diligent crew of Curse, who reassemble Arnulfo Maldonado’s set every night after it has been trashed by the actors.  Scott Elliott should be commended for offering such an entertaining evening of theatre, despite its dark, dark content.

As for the vanishing American Dream, about which Shepard writes with such passion in this bleak, absurdist play, we are experiencing a day-by-day trauma right now that threatens to destroy any remnants of that dream forever.  Thanks to the New Group, who has the foresight to bring this apocalyptic play to our attention again, we must heed its prophecies.  

Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard, directed by Scott Elliott, produced by The New Group at Signature Theatre Center, playing now through April 6.

Photo credits: Monique Carboni