A powerful meditation on the failure of the American Dream.

"There is no honour in self-destruction"

Though set in the hinterlands of America's Midwest in the 70s, Sam Shepard's Buried Child is an eerie reflection of modern disillusionment with capitalism's failed promises as well as a powerful meditation on the degradation of the traditional nuclear family structure.

Upon taking my seat at Trafalgar Studios West End transfer of the classic naturalist piece, I was struck by the frail appearance of Academy Award nominated star Ed Harris as he coughed, hacked and spluttered amidst the din of the arriving audience. In fact, so convincing was his deterioration that I worried for his health throughout. The veteran actor reprises his role as Dodge, a chain-smoking, whisky-swinging, couch-dwelling farmer in his twilight years who faces a daily verbal onslaught from his wife. Her musings, memories and disappointments flood the stairwell from the unseen upstairs bedroom and as the power balances of the family are revealed, it also emerges that this sharp-tongued harpy is the matriarch of this tribe, leaving ineffectual patriarch Dodge to ruin himself as she heads into town to participate in a not-so-secret affair with the local pastor.

The couple's grown up sons are a constant source of disappointment too. There's the emotionally stunted Tilden, amputee Bradley (whose wooden leg is a symbol of the emasculation that also characterises Dodge and his failed farm) and Ansel, the most promising of the three who died under suspicious circumstances in a motel room. From the very start it is clear that there is something amiss within the decrepit house and decaying family bonds. But something lies beneath these broken outward appearances, a dark secret that is wrenched to the surface by the arrival of Vince, a young forgotten family member, and his wildcard girlfriend Shelly.

A naturalist piece, Buried Child is a masterclass in tension building, meticulously displaying every detail of human interaction between the characters and their surroundings. Despite this, and the play's three hour run time, it didn't feel laboriously long and my attention was engaged by the rhythm and poetry in Sam Shepard's bleak dialogue. While I was in awe of real life husband and wife duo Ed Harris and Amy Madigan's performances, I found Vince and Shelly's young-gun bravado and American accents unconvincing. I came away with a sense that Buried Child is a thought-provoking classic in literary terms and although the production was slightly let down by mismatched casting choices for the rest of the ensemble, the gravitas of its leads and the gravity of its subject matter is undeniable.

Reviewed by Teia
Find me on Twitter: @_londontheatre_

Buried Child is at the Trafalgar Studios until February 11th