Off-B'way Reviews: Curse of the Starving Class; Dakar 2000

Christian Slater, Calista Flockhart,
and Lois in
Curse of the Starving Class.
Credit: Monique Carboni

Sam Shepard’s darkly funny and tragic family drama Curse of the Starving Class premiered in London in 1977 and then Off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 1978, winning an Obie Award for Best Play. Bruce Beresford direct a 1996 film version starring James Woods and Kathy Bates. It has been revived by Signature Theater Company in 2019. Despite this relatively recent production and its age, a new staging in Signature’s theater complex by a different company (The New Group), Curse does not feel repetitive or dated to the late 70s thanks to a muscular production by New Group artistic director Scott Elliott. When this unflinching portrait of the symbolic disintegration of the American Dream and the nuclear family was first produced, the country was reeling from Watergate and the first major spell of mass disillusion with our trusted institutions. In 2019, we were sharply divided by Trump’s populism and politics of rage. Now we are even more shattered and conflicted and Shepard’s bleak vision feels especially relevant. 

The basic plot echoes the works of Chekhov, Williams and O’Neill with the dysfunctional Tate clan clawing each other over the fate of their home and ranch in California (Arnulfo Maldonado designed the hyper-realistic kitchen set.)  Alcoholic dad Weston (a grizzled Christian Slater) plans to sell off the land in order to pay his enormous debts, mostly for bar tabs and restoring antique cars. Mother Ella (appropriately desperate and harried Calista Flockhart) has similar designs, but wants to use the profits to flee to a fantasy life in Europe. Their two children, Wesley (a zombie-like Cooper Hoffman) and Emma (razor-sharp Stella Marcus) seek to establish their own identities in different ways. Wesley wants to stay on the land and make it work while Emma, like her mom, indulges in elaborate dreams of escape involving fishing boats and becoming a mechanic. 

Cooper Hoffman and Christian Slater
in Curse of the Starving Class.
Credit: Monique Carboni

Shepard uses the clashes of the Tates to develop his themes of alienation and disconnection from American society. No one trusts banks, institutes, or the country at large. When asked to describe a slick real-estate dealer (appropriately glib Kyle Beltran) looking to purchase the family spread, Emma tartly replies, “You know, ordinary, like a crook.” Also, the family is caught in an economic squeeze, unable to make their land pay. Ella often exclaims they are not starving, but not rich either. “We’re somewhere in the middle,” she declares. They are constantly opening the refrigerator, seeking sustenance which is hardly ever there. There are myriad images and references to food, eating and livestock. Emma has been saving a chicken to dissect for her 4-H Club, but Ella boiled it before the demonstration. Wesley brings a live sheep onstage (In one of the few instances of miscasting, Lois the animal actor appears a bit too well-fed for her role.)

Bedrock Buried Child

While watching reruns of The Flintstones on MeTV, I realized that we never found out the secret of Bamm Bamm's origin. He just showed up in a baby basket on Barney and Betty's doorstep one night after they wished on a star for an infant of their own after enviously cooing over their neighbors' darling Pebbles. Where did Bamm Bamm really come from? This deep dark secret reminded me of Sam Shepard's Buried Child and Tracey Letts' August: Osage County. So here is a parody imagining the ultimate reckoning. With apologies to Sam Shepard, Tracey Letts, Joseph Hanna and William Barbera.

The scene is the living room of the Flintstone house. It is dark and gloomy, though it is early afternoon. All the shades are drawn. Fred Flintstone is seated in is favorite comfy rock chair, asleep in front of a TV set. The sounds of a rerun of The Prize is Price can be softly heard. Fred snores loudly and is surrounded by bones from a brontosaurus steak. The decaying carcass of Dino the dinosaur is one corner. A long-

What if Sam Shepard and Tracey Letts
wrote an episode of the Flintstones?

billed bird on its last legs is perched above a dusty hi-fi set, ready to play records with its beak. Wilma Flintstone, heavily made-up to cover her age and wearing an inappropriately revealing dress, staggers into the room, leaning on a wooden cane.

Wilma: Fred! Wake up, you old ton of guts!

Fred (struggling to wake, mumbling): What, what is it? (Sees Wilma) Oh, it's you. I was dreaming of Gina Lolabrickita and here you are, like a nightmare. Why did you have to wake me up?

Wilma: To tell you I'm going out. I didn't want you to panic if you saw I was gone.

Fred: Panic? Are you kidding? I'd probably be so happy, I'd give myself a heart attack.

Wilma: Very funny.

Fred: Where you are going all dolled up, anyway? Who'd want to see an old buzzard like you?

Wilma: Give it a rest, Fred. I'm going to meet Reverend Rockbury to discuss your final arrangements.

Fred: Final arrangements? I ain't dead yet, goddamnit. (He tries to rise but can't) You already got me dead and buried, why you scheming hussy. I'll bet you and that Bible shaker are plotting to steal all my money--- (he flops back into the chair).

Wilma: Don't make me laugh. What money? After 50 years at Slate Gravel what do you have to show for it? This dump? A dead dinosaur we can't afford to have buried. A broken-down hi-fi set that can't even play CDs? Ever since you started seeing that little green man from outer space, you've just fallen apart. You sit in that chair and watch old game shows and wrestling matches all day while I try to put food on the table. I tell you, Fred Flintstone, I am glad our daughter ran away. Glad, do you hear!