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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (June 7, 1996)
3 6 T juiM 7. 1 9 9 6 ▼ ju s t o u t When you want a Realtor I'm Your Typ e ! WANTED: I Have Qualified Buyers For The Following Properties: 1. Close is SE or NE, older home (Bungalow or Old PDX) 1800+ Sq. Ft., 3+BR, high ceilings and large rooms a plus, light cosmetic OK, under $180,000. 2. Alameda, Irvington, Port. Heights, grand older home with character, 2900+ Sq. Ft., 4+BR, all styles, up to $600,000. 3. N or NE, 2-3BR, 2 level, light cosmetic a plus, under $120,000. 4. Tigard, Beaverton, 3-4BR, move in ready, ranch or 2 level. Newer preferred, 1300-1700 Sq. Ft., up to $165,000. F amily P lot ▼ First time home-buyers ▼ Move up home-buyers ▼ Home-sellers The blight o f the American dream is unearthed in Sam Shepardfs Buried Child ▼ Investment Opportunities y Referrals welcom ed! ▼ by C. Jay Wilson Jr. ▼ Matt Delay, Partner ▼ Your Type Of Realtor! R om ania an d A sso c ia te s R ealto rs 5 0 3 -2 9 1 - 9 0 1 1 x 2 2 1 o r 3 1 0 - 7 6 9 3 I am sensitive to y o u r special concerns regarding “Partner~ financing and selling. TABOR FLORIST 4848 SE Division St. Portland, OR 97206 7819 SE Stark St. Portland, OR 97215 236-4119 256-2920 MYTHMAKER June 13-23 Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8 pm Saturday, Sunday at 2 pm Stories that celebrate the weave o f life. Told by James Griener. Written by Judith Catterall. $I2 general; $ I0 students fit seniors. Matinees only $6 all tickets. Call 8 2 3 -2 0 0 0 for reservations. PHOTO BY OWEN CAREY Serving Portland and its suburban areas with unsurpassed quality and service Gary Brickner-Schulz (on couch) and Bruce Burkhartsmeier in Buried Child T table denouement of chaos, we are increasingly here is nothing pretty about the the made aware of the characters’ psychological ater of Sam Shepard. His plays seem d estitu tio n , w hich parallels the physical to expose an accumulation of grimy decreptitude of the stage set. Dodge is the head discarded corruptions left behind af of the household, whose permanent position on ter a church picnic. Instead of facing couch seems to entomb him within the blight us with a tidy succession of morals, his the theater of the house. Gary Brickner-Schultz captures reveals a dark nether world teeming with disaf Dodge’s cantankerous disposition with enough fected refugees from the underbelly of the Ameri immobile heartiness to put any self-respecting can dream. Tearing through our polite percep couch potato to shame. Dodge’s wife Halie tions of family, Shepard attacks the very root of (Linda Williams Janke) is positively garish as the matriarch who clings desperately to elusive shreds of her own resuscitated history. Dan Reed and Jacque Drew deliver respect able performances as Vince and Shelly, the couple making the sojourn from the city. It is Bruce Burkhartsmeier’s chilling performance our cultural identity and taunts us with his as Vince’s emotionally unhinged father, how characters’ scornful gloats of disgust. ever, that fuels the play’s insouciant horror. Artists Repertory Theater’s current produc Burkhartsmeier weaves his character’s foolish tion of Buried Child delivers all of Shepard’s ness with his tightly contained hostility to create macabre charm. From the moment spectators a startling portrayal that enter the theater, they begin to feel that some convinces us by way of its subtlety. A few of thing is awry. The trash- strewn, ultra-dilapidated the performances in the set (complete with a re play could have been clining actor) greets the toned down to allow audience while accom the play’s edges to de paniment of songs from velop naturally. The the musical Oklahoma best way to destroy a helps them settle into Sam Shepard play is to their seats. Som ehow drown its aspects of re they know th at, this alism in a sea of gratu evening, it will not be itous ridiculousness entertainment of the Neil and forced melodrama. Simon variety on their Buried Child is one theatergoing plates. of few plays that has a The plot is fairly decisive finger on the straightforward: A young pulse of American con man from the city drags sciousness. Don’t al his girlfriend into the pro low y o u rself to be vincial Midwest in an at frightened away by the tempt to return to his sh o w ’s d e so latio n . roots, only to be con Even as we witness fronted with a grisly fam each character’s appar ily secret, his family’s in ent hopelessness, we ability to remember him, are som ehow p e r and the stark essence of decay that defines their suaded to believe in the promise of rebirth as a lives. human privilege that is wholly ours, in spite of As Buried Child advances toward its inevi- the disintegration that encapsulates our lives. A young man drags his girlfriend into the provincial Midwest in an attempt to return to his roots , only to be confronted with a grisly family secret , his family's inability to remember him , and the stark essence of decay that defines their lives.
