Event

A Lie of the Mind

Told in three acts set in the gritty American West, the story alternates between two families after a severe incident of spousal abuse leaves all their lives altered. The two families, one composed of Baylor, Meg, Beth, and Mike, the other composed of Lorraine, Sally, Frankie, and Jake are connected by the marriage of Jake and Beth, whose beating and subsequent hospitalization at the hands of Jake initiates the beginning of the play. Exploring family dysfunction and the nature of love, the play follows Jake as he searches for meaning after Beth, and her family, as they struggle with Beth's brain damage.

When it premiered in 1986, A Lie of the Mind won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway Play. The 2010 revival was also nominated for the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Revival.

"Sam Shepard is surely the only dramatist alive who could tell a story as sad and frightening as this one and make such a funny play of it without ever skimping on its emotional depth." - The New Yorker

"(A Lie of the Mind) Is the unmistakable expression of a major writer nearing the height of his powers." - NY Times

Contains partial nudity
For mature audiences only