Event

Buried Child

Buried Child is a powerful and haunting portrayal of the crumbling myth of the American Family. Vince returns home to his family's farm, where his estranged father festers over old wounds as Grandpa drinks himself to death to avoid Grandma's fixation on the past. Strangely, no one recognizes Vince. Hardly the homecoming he expected, a history of hurt and betrayal emerges as the family's darkest secrets are unearthed from the barren corn fields.

This show is how Shepard received fame as a playwright. The play depicts the fragmentation of the American nuclear family in a context of disappointment and disillusionment with American mythology and the American Dream, the 1970s rural economic slowdown, and the breakdown of traditional family structures and values. In 1979, Shepard also won the Obie Award for Playwriting. The Broadway revival in 1996 received five Tony nominations, including Best Play.