Curse of the Starving Class

Overview

The setting is a farmhouse somewhere in the American West, inhabited by a family who have enough to eat, but not enough more to satisfy the other hungers that bedevil them. The father is a drunk; the mother a frowzy slattern; the daughter precocious beyond her years; and the son a deranged idealist who wants something better but has no clear idea of how to attain it. The action is filled with changes and counter-changes as the family decides to sell the house to raise money; the mother talks of running off to ...
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Overview

The setting is a farmhouse somewhere in the American West, inhabited by a family who have enough to eat, but not enough more to satisfy the other hungers that bedevil them. The father is a drunk; the mother a frowzy slattern; the daughter precocious beyond her years; and the son a deranged idealist who wants something better but has no clear idea of how to attain it. The action is filled with changes and counter-changes as the family decides to sell the house to raise money; the mother talks of running off to Europe or Mexico but ends up asleep on the kitchen table; the father sobers up and tries to take control; the daughter is blown up in the family car; and the son is brutalized and bloodied by the evil forces besetting them. In the end of the play its people become a metaphor for the underside of American life—the benighted innocents forever pursuing a diminished dream and the illusion of fulfillment that remains ever beyond their reach.
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Editorial Reviews

Cue Magazine
Sam Shepard has taken a giant step with his new play, the latest in a long line of macabre and often brilliant excursions into his personal nightmare-view of America.
NY Post
...it will be recalled as an important step in a major playwright's career.
Time
Shepard has fashioned a play of eloquent intensity, whirlwind farce and resonantly poignant insight.
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780822202615
  • Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Incorporated
  • Publication date: 3/31/2010
  • Pages: 68
  • Sales rank: 245,086
  • Product dimensions: 5.10 (w) x 7.50 (h) x 0.30 (d)

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