Buried Child

Buried Child
Original playbill for Broadway's 1996 production
Written by	Sam Shepard
Date premiered	June 27, 1978
Place premiered	Magic Theatre, San Francisco
Original language	English
Genre	Drama
Setting	Illinois farmhouse, 1978

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. 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 production in 1996 was nominated for five Tony Awards, including Best Play.

In an old farmhouse on a failed plot of land in Illinois, the characters Dodge and Halie are introduced. The scene begins with the couple having a conversation with one another, discussing events of their past. Halie is not seen in the scene as she is yelling from upstairs, while Dodge is sitting on the basement sofa. He occasionally sneaks drinks from a bottle hidden in the couch; it is evident that he is an alcoholic. They talk about their son Ansel, a model son, who was murdered years before, allegedly by his psychotic, Catholic wife on their wedding night. They also talk about another son, Bradley, an amputee who comes to cut Dodge's hair forcefully while he sleeps; Dodge is wearing a baseball cap to ward off this inevitability.

Halie leaves for church, dressed in black, and tells the oldest son, Tilden, to look after Dodge. Tilden then enters the scene with an armful of corn, which he claims grew in the field outside. Dodge states that nothing has grown in the field since the Dust Bowl, and accuses Tilden of stealing from a neighbor. Dodge and Tilden then begin to discuss Tilden's past; they speak of how he "got into trouble" in New Mexico, and how in failing his attempt to leave the family home for a new life, Tilden was forced to flee following this incident. Tilden is evidently mentally unwell as he sits, shucking corn into a bucket. When Dodge falls asleep at the end of their conversation, Tilden covers him with the corn husks, creating a blanket, before he goes outside into the rain. Bradley enters the room shortly after and shaves Dodge's head while he sleeps.