Curse of the Starving Class
Encyclopedia
Curse of the Starving Class is a play by Sam Shepard
which, along with Buried Child
, A Lie of the Mind
and True West
, comprises the playwright's family
tragedies.
, on March 2, 1978, presented by Joseph Papp
. The cast was as follows:
The play opens with Wesley putting pieces of a broken down door into a wheelbarrow. Ella, his mother, enters and they begin to discuss the events of the night before that lead to Wesley’s father, Weston, breaking down the door. Wesley begins a monologue narrating exactly what he saw and heard happen from the night before. Wesley then leaves and Ella begins to give a motherly talk on what happens during menstruation and what cannot be done during the cycle. Ella is on stage alone for the beginning of the talk, but her daughter, Emma, walks on stage mid-talk and joins the conversation as though she has been there all along. Ella then asks Emma what she is holding and Emma reminds her that these are her poster for the 4-H project on how to properly cut up a frying chicken that she has been working on quite some time. Emma goes to the refrigerator and begins to look for her chicken. Ella begins to act antsy and Emma realizes that Ella has boiled her chicken. Emma begins a rant about how she raised the chicken and hand fed it every day, then killed and cleaned it and her mother has gone and boiled it. Ella tries to feign innocence and Emma storms out. Wesley enters and decides that Emma’s project is pointless and that she ought to be focusing on more important things. Emma returns, still furious, and the three begin an argument about the starving class and whether or not they are part of it. During their argument, Wesley goes to Emma’s posters and beings to urinate on them. Ella points this out to Emma and Emma storms off, insisting that she is going to take the horse and run away. Ella tells Emma that the horse is crazy and that she is too young to leave home but Emma refuses to listen.
Ella tries to get Wesley to go down and stop Emma from taking the horse. Wesley refuses to stop Emma, and Ella begins to tell him about her plans to sell the house. Wesley is not happy with his mother’s decision, and she continues to try and ask him to go stop Emma. Wesley still refuses to go after his sister, and Ella tells him that she is planning to use the money from the house to go to Europe and that he and Emma can come if they want. When Wesley tells her that there will not be enough money from the house to move to Europe Ella gets angry that Wesley is ruining her dream. Wesley then leaves and Emma returns, covered in mud after being thrown from the horse and dragged through the mud. Ella does not tell Emma that she plans to sell the house, but Emma tells Ella that she dreams of moving to Mexico and becoming a mechanic.
Ella goes to the back part of the house and Emma goes the refrigerator. Emma asks the refrigerator why it doesn’t have any food because they aren’t part of the starving class. She reassures the refrigerator that soon there will be little eggs, butter, and other foods tucked away inside of it. She then becomes angry with the refrigerator and slams it shut. When she turns around she finds that there is a man standing in the room with her. The man tells her that he was going to knock but that there was no door. Emma explains that her father broke the door down the night before in a drunken rage. The man tells her that his name is Taylor and that he is looking for her mother. She wants to know what he wants her mother for and he tells her that he is in the real-estate business and is helping her mother sell the house. Emma is enraged that her mother is selling the house and Taylor tries to convince her that selling the property is in their best interest. Emma tells Taylor that her family has violent tendencies caused by some family members having nitroglycerin, which is a very explosive element, in their blood.
Wesley then enters and sets up a small enclosure in the kitchen. He exits again and returns with a lamb, which he puts in the enclosure. Ella finally enters and says that she is going on a business luncheon with Taylor. Emma yells at Ella and exits. Ella leaves with Taylor, telling Wesley to take the lamb with the maggots back outside.
Weston enters, drunk, with a large bag of groceries. Weston talks to the lamb briefly, and then begins putting the groceries, which turn out to only be desert artichokes, in the refrigerator. Wesley enters and they discuss Weston’s laundry and the best way to help the lamb with the maggots.
Act II
Act two opens on Wesley and Emma in the kitchen, where Wesley is building a new front door for the house. Emma and Wesley discuss whether their mother will come back, or whether she will run off to Mexico with Taylor. Wesley and Emma then argue over who is going to go add water to the artichokes that are boiling on the stove. Wesley doesn’t want to do it because he is making the door and Emma doesn’t want to do it because she is remaking her posters. Wesley says that Emma doesn’t want to do it just because she’s “on the rag” so she throws down her markers and get up to add the water.
Wesley then explains to Emma that it’s not typical homebuyers who are going to purchase the house, but that it’s land developers. He compares it to a zombie invasion and takeover, where the zombies build their own city. He then suggests that they move away to some place safe, like Alaska.
Weston enters, even drunker than he was before. Emma is frightened by him, but Wesley tells her to stay calm. Weston asks where Ella is, and then goes into a rage when Wesley and Emma tell him where she went. Weston then tells them that he’s already found someone who will buy the land and pay in cash. Emma, angry, leaves. Weston begins to tell Wesley about how he began to see the ‘poison’ in his own father, and how Wesley can see it in him. Weston tries to explain the poison to Wesley by comparing it to the way to you poison a coyote by putting strychnine in the belly of a dead lamb.
Wesley then tells Weston that Ella has also found a buyer for the house and Weston goes into a rage, and then collapses on a table and falls asleep. Ella returns with groceries that Taylor has bought for the family and throws out the artichokes. Wesley deduces that Taylor is the one who sold Weston with worthless desert property in the first place. Ella talks about the curse that is plaguing their family. She tells Wesley that just when you think the curse has been beaten, and it has retreated back into the smallest cells of their genetics, it will suddenly reappear in full force.
Ellis, the owner of the “Alibi Club” walks into the house and sees Weston on the table. He tells Wesley and Emma that he has already purchased the house from Weston and shows them the cash. He pulls out the $1,500, telling them that is the amount that Weston owes to some “pretty hard fellas”. Wesley takes the money, offering to deliver it to the people his father owes money to. Ella tries to take the money from Wesley, but he tells her there’s not enough to go to Europe on. Taylor then enters and Ella tells him what’s happened. Taylor says that any deal Weston makes is void because he is considered incompetent by the state. Taylor declares that he will go to court and have the deed taken back and then buy the property from Ella, then leaves the house.
Sergeant Malcolm from the police department enters and tells Ella that Emma has been arrested for riding a horse into the “Alibi Club” and shooting the place full of holes. Ellis says that Weston must have sent Emma down there and takes back his $1,500 and runs off to his club, swearing he will get revenge on Weston. Ella goes downtown to get Emma out of jail.
Act III
This act opens with Weston, who is now clean, and sober. He has done his laundry, which is all nicely folded on the table, and the lamb is back in the kitchen. He tells the lamb a story about an eagle who was diving very close down to the ground trying to steal the testes of the lambs he was castrating. In the end he was cheering for the eagle. Wesley, who has been listening to this story, then asks what happens next. Weston becomes grumpy and refuses to tell the rest of the story. He asks what happened to Wesley, who had clearly been beaten up. Wesley tells him that he ran into a brick wall.
Weston tells Wesley that he has decided to stay and fix up the house instead of leaving, no matter who holds the deed. Weston says that when he woke up that morning, after sleeping on the table, that he felt like a new man and walked around their property naked to reclaim ownership. He then came inside and took a bath, made a big breakfast, drank some coffee, and did everyone’s laundry. He tells Wesley to go clean up, and he’ll make him a big breakfast. While Wesley is bathing, Weston yells into him that he agrees that becoming an avocado grower for the Grower’s Association.
Ella enters and she and Weston discuss Emma’s shooting up of the club. Weston is proud of Emma, saying that it takes guts to do something like that at her age. Ella begins to yell at Weston for pulling a Jekyll and Hyde act by changing over night. He tells her it was the night’s sleep on the table that fixed everything. Ella pushes all the laundry to the floor and lies on the table. As she is falling asleep, and Weston is talking to her about the benefits of sleeping on the hard table, Wesley walks into the kitchen, naked, and takes the lamb outside.
Wesley re-enters, wearing his father’s old clothes. He tells Weston that he has butchered the lamb for food. Weston yells at him, telling him that they didn’t need the food, because the refrigerator is full for once. Wesley then begins to gorge himself on all of the food in the refrigerator. Weston tries to calm Wesley down, and to wake Emma up, but cannot seem to do either. He declares to them that he is a whole new person, and Wesley finally stops eating tells Weston that the men who are after him are going to kill him. At first, Weston can’t remember who all he has loaned money to, and begins to rant about how this is his home and nobody ought to be able to take it from him because he has nowhere else to go. Weston tells him to take the Packard and escape to Mexico. Weston leaves.
Emma enters, carrying her riding crop. She asks Weston why he is wearing their father’s clothes. He tells her that as he put them on he could feel his own essence slipping out of him, and his father’s essence coming into him. Wesley asks her how she got out of jail and she tells him that she made sexual overtures at the guard. She then pulls out a wad of cash and tells him that she’s taking their mother’s car and going into crime. As she leaves, Ella wakes up, mistakes Wesley for Weston, and tells him to go after Emma because she’s too young to leave on her own. Weston tells Ella to let Emma go and then there is a bright flash and a loud explosion from outside. Emerson, a small well dressed thug, enters giggling about the explosion. His partner, Slater, enters after him, playing with the skinned lamb carcass. Since Ella is still under the impression that Wesley is Weston, Emerson and Slater also mistake Wesley for Weston. Wesley tries to tell them that Weston is his father. They tell him that they have blown up the car, with Emma in the car. The men tell Wesley, who they are still calling Weston, that he is to pass on the warning to his father and they leave.
Ella believes that Emma has left on the horse, and is not overly concerned about her. Looking at the lamb carcass, she asks Wesley to help her remember the story Weston always told about the eagle. They finish the story, saying that a tom cat had come to sniff around in the testes and the eagle picked it up. The tom cat and the eagle start fighting in midair, with the cat clawing out the eagle’s chest, and the eagle trying to drop it. However, the tom cat won’t let go because if it does it will fall and die. Instead, it chooses to bring the eagle down, even if it means certain doom for the cat as well.
The play ends with Ella and Wesley staring at the lamb carcass.
The Tate family is a lower- middle-class, rural California family, trying to hold on to the last shreds of a family bond and traditional living.
Wesley Tate, the son of the family. Feeling strong ties to his family and to the land, Wesley maintains the farm after the others have given up. The prospect of selling the land to real estate developers has a significance far greater than the loss of a mere house, but his family. At times, Wesley loses patience with his family members, as evidenced by his lack of sympathy for his sister’s ruined 4-H project, to which he responds by urinating on her charts and suggesting that his sister do something truly useful with her time.
Ella Tate is the mother of the family. As the play opens, she and Wesley are both looking through the chunks of the broken door that her husband, Weston, broke in a fit of rage. Ella is more or less the logic/presentational figure in the family. She often changes topics when she feels it in her best interest and throughout the play has varying mood swings though acts as if nothing affects her. She tends to ignore the things going on immediately around her. Although she tries to hide her true feelings, it’s very evident through her constant topic changing, that some things really do hit home with her. Ella decides to take matters into her own hands and puts the house up for sale without consulting her husband.
Emma Tate is the daughter of Ella and Weston Tate. She has just started her first period, and has several mood swings during the play. Emma is unhappy with her family and their behavior and announces that she is leaving the family several times. She first tries to run away by taking the family horse, but it throws her off and drags her through the mud, so she comes back. Later, in a fit of anger of Ellis buying their house, she rides the family horse into Ellis' bar and shoots the place full of holes. Once she is arrested she says that she gains her freedom by offering sexual bribes to the sheriff. She then decides to steal her mother's car and take up a life of crime, claiming that it is the only way to make a real living in this world. In her attempt to steal the car, she is blown up with the car by the bomb that Slater puts in it.
Ellis is the owner of the bar the Alibi Club which is where Weston spends his time when he is not at home. Ellis is greedy and often takes advantage of the family through Weston especially when he comes to the house in order to claim it as his own. Ellis represents the greed and controlling nature of business owners and the tendency of these people to take unfair advantage of each other and people below them.
Emerson is a minor character, and represents the men that Weston is in debt to. He and Slater, another minor character, only appear at the end of the production in order to blow up Weston’s car for re-compensation. He is a very wicked man, and can be thought of as a villain.
Weston Tate is the father of the family and an abusive alcoholic. He is controlled by the alcohol that runs in his system. This violent nature of his has a profound effect on the family. His antics are tearing the family apart and have even made his house subject for sale. Also his terrible lifestyle habits cause others to take advantage of him and when his debts are not paid, it can take an even more terrifying toll on the family.
Sergeant Malcom is the police officer who arrives at the house to inform Ella that Emma has been arrested for riding a horse into the “Alibi Club” and shooting it up. He is uninterested in the other crimes that Wesley and Ella accuse Taylor and Ellis of, stating that he is only there to tell Ella about Emma.
Taylor is a lawyer who is involved in real estate and is looking to buy the property from Ella. He is the representative for several large corporations that are looking to buy up land. He is also the same man who swindled Weston into buying the useless desert property.
Slater is Emerson’s accomplice. He is the one who actually put the bomb in the car that kills Emma. He and Emerson represent the men that Weston owes money to¸ and have come to serve as a warning. Slater also brings the dead lamb’s carcass into the house.
, Kathy Bates
and Jim Fitzpatrick
.
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
which, along with Buried Child
Buried Child
Buried Child is a play by Sam Shepard first presented in 1978. It won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and launched Shepard to national fame as a playwright...
, A Lie of the Mind
A Lie of the Mind
A Lie of the Mind is a play written by Sam Shepard, first staged at the off-Broadway Promenade Theater on 5 December 1985. The play was directed by Shepard himself with stars Harvey Keitel as Jake, Amanda Plummer as Beth, Aidan Quinn as Frankie, Geraldine Page as Lorraine, and Will Patton as Mike...
and True West
True West (play)
True West is a play by American playwright Sam Shepard. Like most of his works it is inspired by myths of American life and popular culture. The play is a more traditional narrative than most of the plays that Shepard has written.-Plot:...
, comprises the playwright's family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
tragedies.
Production history
Curse of the Starving Class was first performed at the New York Shakespeare FestivalNew York Shakespeare Festival
New York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
, on March 2, 1978, presented by Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...
. The cast was as follows:
- Wesley - Ebbe Roe Smith
- Ella - Olympia DukakisOlympia DukakisOlympia Dukakis is an American actress. In 1987, she won an Academy Award, BAFTA, and a Golden Globe for her performance in Moonstruck...
- Emma - Pamela ReedPamela ReedPamela Reed is an American actress. She is known for playing Ruth Powers in various episodes of TV's The Simpsons, as Arnold Schwarzenegger's hypoglycemic partner in the 1990 movie Kindergarten Cop and as the matriarch Gail Green in Jericho...
- Taylor - Kenneth WelshKenneth WelshKenneth Welsh, CM is a Canadian film and television actor . He is known to Twin Peaks fans as the multi-faceted villain Windom Earle, and has more recently played the father of Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator.In 1984 he was nominated for a Genie Award as Best Actor for his...
- Weston - James GammonJames GammonJames Richard Gammon was an American actor, known for playing grizzled "good ol' boy" types in numerous films and television series.-Early life:...
- Ellis - Eddie JonesEddie Jones (actor)Eddie Jones is an American actor known for playing Clark Kent's father Jonathan Kent in the ABC television series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, and Charles Broden Eddie Jones (born 1937 Washington, Pennsylvania) is an American actor known for playing Clark Kent's father Jonathan...
- Malcolm - John AquinoJohn D'AquinoJohn D'Aquino is a Canadian-American actor who is perhaps best known for his role as Lt. Benjamin Krieg in the NBC TV series seaQuest DSV during the show's first season, a role he later reprised in the third season and President Richard Martinez in the Disney Channel Original Series Cory in the...
- Emerson - Michael J. PollardMichael J. Pollard- Early life :Born Michael John Pollack, Jr. in Passaic, New Jersey, he is the son of Sonia and Michael John Pollack. He attended the Montclair Academy and the Actors Studio.- Career :...
- Slater - Raymond J. BarryRaymond J. BarryRaymond John Barry is an American film, television and stage actor.-Personal life:Raymond John Barry was born in Hempstead, New York . His father, Raymond Barry, worked in sales. His mother, Barbara Barry , was also an actor, known professionally as B. Constance Barry...
- Directed by Robert WoodruffRobert Woodruff (director)Robert Woodruff is an American theater director.-Early life:Woodruff graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from the University at Buffalo in political science. He has a masters degree in theater arts from San Francisco State University...
- Setting and Costumes by Santo Loqueasto
- Lighting by Martin Tudor
- Music By Bob Feldman
- Production Stage Manager Zane Weiner
- Presented by the New York Shakespeare FestivalNew York Shakespeare FestivalNew York Shakespeare Festival is the previous name of the New York City theatrical producing organization now known as the Public Theater. The Festival produced shows at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, as part of its free Shakespeare in the Park series, at the Public Theatre near Astor Place...
- Producer Joseph PappJoseph PappJoseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...
- Associate Producer Bernard Gersten
Style
Curse of the Starving Class is a darkly comic exploration of the American family psyche in the style of Absurdism. The play focuses on the dysfunctional Tate clan—the drunken dreamer of a father, burned-out mother, rebellious teenage daughter, and idealistic son—as they struggle for control of the rundown family farm in a futile search for freedom, security, and ultimately meaning in their lives.Plot summary
Act IThe play opens with Wesley putting pieces of a broken down door into a wheelbarrow. Ella, his mother, enters and they begin to discuss the events of the night before that lead to Wesley’s father, Weston, breaking down the door. Wesley begins a monologue narrating exactly what he saw and heard happen from the night before. Wesley then leaves and Ella begins to give a motherly talk on what happens during menstruation and what cannot be done during the cycle. Ella is on stage alone for the beginning of the talk, but her daughter, Emma, walks on stage mid-talk and joins the conversation as though she has been there all along. Ella then asks Emma what she is holding and Emma reminds her that these are her poster for the 4-H project on how to properly cut up a frying chicken that she has been working on quite some time. Emma goes to the refrigerator and begins to look for her chicken. Ella begins to act antsy and Emma realizes that Ella has boiled her chicken. Emma begins a rant about how she raised the chicken and hand fed it every day, then killed and cleaned it and her mother has gone and boiled it. Ella tries to feign innocence and Emma storms out. Wesley enters and decides that Emma’s project is pointless and that she ought to be focusing on more important things. Emma returns, still furious, and the three begin an argument about the starving class and whether or not they are part of it. During their argument, Wesley goes to Emma’s posters and beings to urinate on them. Ella points this out to Emma and Emma storms off, insisting that she is going to take the horse and run away. Ella tells Emma that the horse is crazy and that she is too young to leave home but Emma refuses to listen.
Ella tries to get Wesley to go down and stop Emma from taking the horse. Wesley refuses to stop Emma, and Ella begins to tell him about her plans to sell the house. Wesley is not happy with his mother’s decision, and she continues to try and ask him to go stop Emma. Wesley still refuses to go after his sister, and Ella tells him that she is planning to use the money from the house to go to Europe and that he and Emma can come if they want. When Wesley tells her that there will not be enough money from the house to move to Europe Ella gets angry that Wesley is ruining her dream. Wesley then leaves and Emma returns, covered in mud after being thrown from the horse and dragged through the mud. Ella does not tell Emma that she plans to sell the house, but Emma tells Ella that she dreams of moving to Mexico and becoming a mechanic.
Ella goes to the back part of the house and Emma goes the refrigerator. Emma asks the refrigerator why it doesn’t have any food because they aren’t part of the starving class. She reassures the refrigerator that soon there will be little eggs, butter, and other foods tucked away inside of it. She then becomes angry with the refrigerator and slams it shut. When she turns around she finds that there is a man standing in the room with her. The man tells her that he was going to knock but that there was no door. Emma explains that her father broke the door down the night before in a drunken rage. The man tells her that his name is Taylor and that he is looking for her mother. She wants to know what he wants her mother for and he tells her that he is in the real-estate business and is helping her mother sell the house. Emma is enraged that her mother is selling the house and Taylor tries to convince her that selling the property is in their best interest. Emma tells Taylor that her family has violent tendencies caused by some family members having nitroglycerin, which is a very explosive element, in their blood.
Wesley then enters and sets up a small enclosure in the kitchen. He exits again and returns with a lamb, which he puts in the enclosure. Ella finally enters and says that she is going on a business luncheon with Taylor. Emma yells at Ella and exits. Ella leaves with Taylor, telling Wesley to take the lamb with the maggots back outside.
Weston enters, drunk, with a large bag of groceries. Weston talks to the lamb briefly, and then begins putting the groceries, which turn out to only be desert artichokes, in the refrigerator. Wesley enters and they discuss Weston’s laundry and the best way to help the lamb with the maggots.
Act II
Act two opens on Wesley and Emma in the kitchen, where Wesley is building a new front door for the house. Emma and Wesley discuss whether their mother will come back, or whether she will run off to Mexico with Taylor. Wesley and Emma then argue over who is going to go add water to the artichokes that are boiling on the stove. Wesley doesn’t want to do it because he is making the door and Emma doesn’t want to do it because she is remaking her posters. Wesley says that Emma doesn’t want to do it just because she’s “on the rag” so she throws down her markers and get up to add the water.
Wesley then explains to Emma that it’s not typical homebuyers who are going to purchase the house, but that it’s land developers. He compares it to a zombie invasion and takeover, where the zombies build their own city. He then suggests that they move away to some place safe, like Alaska.
Weston enters, even drunker than he was before. Emma is frightened by him, but Wesley tells her to stay calm. Weston asks where Ella is, and then goes into a rage when Wesley and Emma tell him where she went. Weston then tells them that he’s already found someone who will buy the land and pay in cash. Emma, angry, leaves. Weston begins to tell Wesley about how he began to see the ‘poison’ in his own father, and how Wesley can see it in him. Weston tries to explain the poison to Wesley by comparing it to the way to you poison a coyote by putting strychnine in the belly of a dead lamb.
Wesley then tells Weston that Ella has also found a buyer for the house and Weston goes into a rage, and then collapses on a table and falls asleep. Ella returns with groceries that Taylor has bought for the family and throws out the artichokes. Wesley deduces that Taylor is the one who sold Weston with worthless desert property in the first place. Ella talks about the curse that is plaguing their family. She tells Wesley that just when you think the curse has been beaten, and it has retreated back into the smallest cells of their genetics, it will suddenly reappear in full force.
Ellis, the owner of the “Alibi Club” walks into the house and sees Weston on the table. He tells Wesley and Emma that he has already purchased the house from Weston and shows them the cash. He pulls out the $1,500, telling them that is the amount that Weston owes to some “pretty hard fellas”. Wesley takes the money, offering to deliver it to the people his father owes money to. Ella tries to take the money from Wesley, but he tells her there’s not enough to go to Europe on. Taylor then enters and Ella tells him what’s happened. Taylor says that any deal Weston makes is void because he is considered incompetent by the state. Taylor declares that he will go to court and have the deed taken back and then buy the property from Ella, then leaves the house.
Sergeant Malcolm from the police department enters and tells Ella that Emma has been arrested for riding a horse into the “Alibi Club” and shooting the place full of holes. Ellis says that Weston must have sent Emma down there and takes back his $1,500 and runs off to his club, swearing he will get revenge on Weston. Ella goes downtown to get Emma out of jail.
Act III
This act opens with Weston, who is now clean, and sober. He has done his laundry, which is all nicely folded on the table, and the lamb is back in the kitchen. He tells the lamb a story about an eagle who was diving very close down to the ground trying to steal the testes of the lambs he was castrating. In the end he was cheering for the eagle. Wesley, who has been listening to this story, then asks what happens next. Weston becomes grumpy and refuses to tell the rest of the story. He asks what happened to Wesley, who had clearly been beaten up. Wesley tells him that he ran into a brick wall.
Weston tells Wesley that he has decided to stay and fix up the house instead of leaving, no matter who holds the deed. Weston says that when he woke up that morning, after sleeping on the table, that he felt like a new man and walked around their property naked to reclaim ownership. He then came inside and took a bath, made a big breakfast, drank some coffee, and did everyone’s laundry. He tells Wesley to go clean up, and he’ll make him a big breakfast. While Wesley is bathing, Weston yells into him that he agrees that becoming an avocado grower for the Grower’s Association.
Ella enters and she and Weston discuss Emma’s shooting up of the club. Weston is proud of Emma, saying that it takes guts to do something like that at her age. Ella begins to yell at Weston for pulling a Jekyll and Hyde act by changing over night. He tells her it was the night’s sleep on the table that fixed everything. Ella pushes all the laundry to the floor and lies on the table. As she is falling asleep, and Weston is talking to her about the benefits of sleeping on the hard table, Wesley walks into the kitchen, naked, and takes the lamb outside.
Wesley re-enters, wearing his father’s old clothes. He tells Weston that he has butchered the lamb for food. Weston yells at him, telling him that they didn’t need the food, because the refrigerator is full for once. Wesley then begins to gorge himself on all of the food in the refrigerator. Weston tries to calm Wesley down, and to wake Emma up, but cannot seem to do either. He declares to them that he is a whole new person, and Wesley finally stops eating tells Weston that the men who are after him are going to kill him. At first, Weston can’t remember who all he has loaned money to, and begins to rant about how this is his home and nobody ought to be able to take it from him because he has nowhere else to go. Weston tells him to take the Packard and escape to Mexico. Weston leaves.
Emma enters, carrying her riding crop. She asks Weston why he is wearing their father’s clothes. He tells her that as he put them on he could feel his own essence slipping out of him, and his father’s essence coming into him. Wesley asks her how she got out of jail and she tells him that she made sexual overtures at the guard. She then pulls out a wad of cash and tells him that she’s taking their mother’s car and going into crime. As she leaves, Ella wakes up, mistakes Wesley for Weston, and tells him to go after Emma because she’s too young to leave on her own. Weston tells Ella to let Emma go and then there is a bright flash and a loud explosion from outside. Emerson, a small well dressed thug, enters giggling about the explosion. His partner, Slater, enters after him, playing with the skinned lamb carcass. Since Ella is still under the impression that Wesley is Weston, Emerson and Slater also mistake Wesley for Weston. Wesley tries to tell them that Weston is his father. They tell him that they have blown up the car, with Emma in the car. The men tell Wesley, who they are still calling Weston, that he is to pass on the warning to his father and they leave.
Ella believes that Emma has left on the horse, and is not overly concerned about her. Looking at the lamb carcass, she asks Wesley to help her remember the story Weston always told about the eagle. They finish the story, saying that a tom cat had come to sniff around in the testes and the eagle picked it up. The tom cat and the eagle start fighting in midair, with the cat clawing out the eagle’s chest, and the eagle trying to drop it. However, the tom cat won’t let go because if it does it will fall and die. Instead, it chooses to bring the eagle down, even if it means certain doom for the cat as well.
The play ends with Ella and Wesley staring at the lamb carcass.
Character summaries
The characters in this piece can be looked upon like stock characters from commedia. They represent something, instead of really being someone. For instance, the father represents the violence and anger of an alcoholic and also shows the destruction of the family.The Tate family is a lower- middle-class, rural California family, trying to hold on to the last shreds of a family bond and traditional living.
Wesley Tate, the son of the family. Feeling strong ties to his family and to the land, Wesley maintains the farm after the others have given up. The prospect of selling the land to real estate developers has a significance far greater than the loss of a mere house, but his family. At times, Wesley loses patience with his family members, as evidenced by his lack of sympathy for his sister’s ruined 4-H project, to which he responds by urinating on her charts and suggesting that his sister do something truly useful with her time.
Ella Tate is the mother of the family. As the play opens, she and Wesley are both looking through the chunks of the broken door that her husband, Weston, broke in a fit of rage. Ella is more or less the logic/presentational figure in the family. She often changes topics when she feels it in her best interest and throughout the play has varying mood swings though acts as if nothing affects her. She tends to ignore the things going on immediately around her. Although she tries to hide her true feelings, it’s very evident through her constant topic changing, that some things really do hit home with her. Ella decides to take matters into her own hands and puts the house up for sale without consulting her husband.
Emma Tate is the daughter of Ella and Weston Tate. She has just started her first period, and has several mood swings during the play. Emma is unhappy with her family and their behavior and announces that she is leaving the family several times. She first tries to run away by taking the family horse, but it throws her off and drags her through the mud, so she comes back. Later, in a fit of anger of Ellis buying their house, she rides the family horse into Ellis' bar and shoots the place full of holes. Once she is arrested she says that she gains her freedom by offering sexual bribes to the sheriff. She then decides to steal her mother's car and take up a life of crime, claiming that it is the only way to make a real living in this world. In her attempt to steal the car, she is blown up with the car by the bomb that Slater puts in it.
Ellis is the owner of the bar the Alibi Club which is where Weston spends his time when he is not at home. Ellis is greedy and often takes advantage of the family through Weston especially when he comes to the house in order to claim it as his own. Ellis represents the greed and controlling nature of business owners and the tendency of these people to take unfair advantage of each other and people below them.
Emerson is a minor character, and represents the men that Weston is in debt to. He and Slater, another minor character, only appear at the end of the production in order to blow up Weston’s car for re-compensation. He is a very wicked man, and can be thought of as a villain.
Weston Tate is the father of the family and an abusive alcoholic. He is controlled by the alcohol that runs in his system. This violent nature of his has a profound effect on the family. His antics are tearing the family apart and have even made his house subject for sale. Also his terrible lifestyle habits cause others to take advantage of him and when his debts are not paid, it can take an even more terrifying toll on the family.
Sergeant Malcom is the police officer who arrives at the house to inform Ella that Emma has been arrested for riding a horse into the “Alibi Club” and shooting it up. He is uninterested in the other crimes that Wesley and Ella accuse Taylor and Ellis of, stating that he is only there to tell Ella about Emma.
Taylor is a lawyer who is involved in real estate and is looking to buy the property from Ella. He is the representative for several large corporations that are looking to buy up land. He is also the same man who swindled Weston into buying the useless desert property.
Slater is Emerson’s accomplice. He is the one who actually put the bomb in the car that kills Emma. He and Emerson represent the men that Weston owes money to¸ and have come to serve as a warning. Slater also brings the dead lamb’s carcass into the house.
Film Adaptation
A (1994) film version stars James WoodsJames Woods
James Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
, Kathy Bates
Kathy Bates
Kathleen Doyle "Kathy" Bates is an American actress and director.After several small roles in film and television, Bates rose to prominence with her performance in Misery , for which she won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and a Golden Globe...
and Jim Fitzpatrick
Jim Fitzpatrick
Jim Fitzpatrick may refer to:*Jim Fitzpatrick , Irish artist*Jim Fitzpatrick , British politician*Jim Fitzpatrick , American roller derby athlete, referee, and author*Jim Fitzpatrick , American actorSee also...
.