The central city suffers while middle-class people flee to suburbs that sprawl ever farther into what was once farmland. Already a member? Wesley describes the suburbanization going on around them as a zombie invasion and tells her he dreams of going to Alaska.
Ella mistakenly calls Wesley Weston. Cutting through the orchard. Emma asks the refrigerator why it doesn't have any food because they aren't part of the starving class. Cobwebs moving with them. Curse of the Starving Class begins with Wesley, in sweatshirt and jeans, tossing pieces of a door into a wheelbarrow. . Something indescribable. Foot kicking harder. His violent nature and utter lack of accountability are the crux of many of the family's issues. Hello, this is Emma's monologue from Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard. Mom crying soft. DeRose, David J. Sam Shepard. Emma and Wesley discuss whether their mother will come back, or whether she will run off to Mexico with Taylor. Makes me feel lonely. Ellas loneliness, or the incredible amount of adrenaline she has to produce in order to keep her body togetherIm not sure about her soul; shes not that deepmakes her hungry. weve done it again! But the people who came to Los Angeles did not want to live in the same kinds of overcrowded cities many of them had left back East. Where Wesley seems angry with her for provoking Weston to anger, Ella holds that the incident was entirely Weston's fault. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Center stage is a table, downstage a refrigerator and stove. Man throwing wood. Like the stock gangsters whose entrance signals the end of the play, these symbols break down the illusion of reality. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. Ed. Wesley assures his father that the gang will get him, and Weston takes off for Mexico. Ellis is the owner of a bar, the Alibi Club, where Weston spends his time when he is not at home. Ella believes that Emma has left on the horse, and is not overly concerned about her. Wesley then begins to gorge himself on all of the food in the refrigerator. publication in traditional print. The drama is here to create an impact: whereas the realistic story of the family appeals to our minds and emotions, the symbols affect us on a subconscious level. (The set design is by Julian Crouch.) Hes slept there before. Gale Cengage Gale Cengage Paper bag being tucked under one arm. Instead, it chooses to bring the eagle down, even if it means certain doom for the cat as well. 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. He tells her to take a nap on the table because itll do wonders for her. Mumbling about his experience flying planes in the Second World War, he passes out again. Or are some families, Shepherd asks, just cursed before they begin? Dad's a foul talking drunk, and Mom is desperately trying to save what's left of their family life. Then softly crying. Soft crying. Act II 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. New York, NY, Linda Ray
Ella decides to take matters into her own hands and puts the house up for sale without consulting her husband. Dad calling Mom. Ella re-enters with groceries and throws the artichokes on the floor. "Curse of the Starving Class - The Play" Survey of Dramatic Literature The dramatic means Shepard uses to present her underlines the theme of the play, the failure of communication, the failure of love, the failure of these individuals to nurture their young. Returning, Emma asks, What kind of a family is this?. "Curse of the Starving Class - Bibliography" Great Characters in Literature
The agriculture drew refugees from the Dust Bowl states during the Great Depression, and poor people thronged to southern California. . Solutions . Ellis enters, laughing at the passed-out Weston who is slumped on the kitchen table. His symbolsthe lamb, the broken door, the refrigerator, the old carjump out at the viewer and almost announce I am a symbol! But Shepard uses them less as true symbols than as evocative images. Ink and Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus Play with History. Wesley wanders in, dazed and naked, wet from his bath. Malcolm agrees to wait for Ella at the station. His partner, Slater, enters after him, playing with the skinned lamb carcass. Obviously, these two motifs are related to each other, for disease is the intrusion of an entity that should be kept outside the body. These objects are indeed symbolic, but they are meant to hit the audience with their power. He tells Weston that he has butchered the lamb for food. Cohn, Ruby. My P-39. Just sitting. Who or what can fill these people up? They swipe at each other viciously over their conflicting hopes and dreams until they rip each other to shreds. In the play, as in the real world, these families were often taken advantage of, selling their land for well below market rates and finding themselves with nowhere to go and little money to sustain them. However, many of the same issues (such as access to abortions and birth control, equal pay for equal work, and affirmative action) still remain to be resolved. date the date you are citing the material. I picture him just sitting. Two motifs, very near each other in meaning, recur throughout Curse of the Starving Class: images of inside/outside and images of disease and sickness. Michael Venzor was featured in a 2011 Equity Showcase of "Curse of the Starving Class" by Sam Shepard. Ella is a highly dysfunctional individual with no capacity to cope with her husband's alcoholism. Even sleeping people I could feel. 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. She tells Wesley that she knows about Westons foolish purchase of desert land sight unseen, and Wesley deduces that it was Taylor who sold him the land. Whatever the cause, the Tates will do just about anything to raise themselves out of the downward spiral into which theyve fallen. California suffers from rolling blackouts, and the major population centers of the East Coast are warned about similar blackouts or brownouts. Ella and Wesley react differently to Westons abuse. On the other hand, all the members of the family, except for Ella, are given long monologues which are almost soliloquies. Breakdown. Today: After riots, fires, a major earthquake, landslides, and flooding, Los Angeles continues to grow.
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. Taylor departs surreptitiously; Ellis grabs his money from Wesley and rushes off, with Wesley in pursuit. Further Reading Wesley deduces that Taylor is the one who sold Weston worthless desert property in the first place. Word Count: 958, Curse of the Starving Class begins with Wesley, in sweatshirt and jeans, tossing pieces of a door into a wheelbarrow. Wesley appears, bloodied, and tells Weston that he has tried to get the money back. Then, looking in that bloody fridge, he, like his children, finds nothing: zero! Directors and actors tend to latch onto the more obvious effects in Shepards writing, including the types of characters he returned to time and again: disgruntled drunk dads, battling spouses and siblings, forsaken lovers. In a way, Weston plays his role as a father perfectly: what would the patriarchy be without chest thumping? Wilmeth, Don B. and Miller, Tice L. "The Cambridge Guide to American Theatre", Cambridge University Press, 1996, Yale Rep Starts Shepard's 'Curse Of The Starving Class' Feb. 3 in New Haven", "Long Wharf Theatre stages 'Curse of the Starving Class' February 13 through March 10", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Curse_of_the_Starving_Class&oldid=1020900821, This page was last edited on 1 May 2021, at 18:23. Slater also brings the dead lamb's carcass into the house. Disease and sickness, and images of a poison circulating through the blood, complement the motif of inside/outside. 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. Word Count: 1530. Emma goes to the refrigerator and begins to look for her chicken. Results may vary. Sorry! Wesley is cleaning up shards of wood from the door his father broke down the night before during a drunken outburst.
He exits again and returns with a lamb, which he puts in the enclosure. Wesley takes the money, offering to deliver it to the people his father owes money to. They menace the family a little and leave. Ella returns with groceries that Taylor has bought for the family and throws out the artichokes. Bulls. As his mother fries him some bacon for breakfast, he recalls the images going through his mind as he lay in bed listening to the splintering of the door. Curse of the Starving Class Jan 26 2023 Tells the story of a dysfunctional family living in a farmhouse they are planning to sell in the hopes of moving on to bigger and better things. Curse of the Starving Class is a 1994 American drama film directed by J. Michael McClary and starring James Woods, Kathy Bates, Randy Quaid, Henry Thomas and Louis Gossett Jr. [1] It is based on Sam Shepard 's 1977 play of the same name. Wesley exits at the sounds of his fathers approach. The second is the date of Ella enters and she and Weston discuss Emma's shooting up of the club. She then becomes angry with the refrigerator and slams it shut. . Then no sound. The Tates live on a farm where they formerly raised sheep and grew avocados. The lights go down with him staring in the open fridge. "Curse of the Starving Class - Literary Style" Drama for Students The symbols work together to undermine the realism of the play. Our Essay Lab can help you tackle any essay assignment within seconds, whether youre studying Macbeth or the American Revolution. Their conversation quickly turns to an issue of thematic importance: restlessness and dissatisfaction in heartland America. Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Waiting to get out. Back down driveway. However, the tom cat won't let go because if it does it will fall and die. Curse of the Starving Class Wesley, in sweatshirt, jeans and cowboy boots picks up pieces of a broken door and throws them methodically into an old wheelbarrow. Lahr, John, A Ghost Town of the Imagination, in Village Voice, July 25, 1977, pp. 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. Urban Sprawl If there are three dates, the first date is the date of the original If there are three dates, the first date is the date of the original Emma picks up Ellas pocketbook, steals from it, and then tells Wesley that she is going to begin a life of crime. Emma walks out. When Weston finally comes home, carrying a bag of artichokes that nobody really wants to eat, he discovers a live lamb that Wesley brought in because it has maggots. Weston talks to the lamb briefly, and then begins putting the groceries, which turn out to only be desert artichokes, in the refrigerator. Weston becomes grumpy and refuses to tell the rest of the story. Emma is frightened by him, but Wesley tells her to stay calm. Dads voice. Him just sitting in the car. Word Count: 509. I could hear the coyotes. At the same time, land speculators were buying the land of Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, and Riverside counties and preparing it for residential development. She is a small woman wearing a bathrobe and pink fuzzy slippers, and her hair is in rollers. President George W. Bush proposes an energy policy that stresses greater production, but many citizens mistrust this policy because of Bushs and Vice-President Dick Cheneys ties to oil companies and the energy industry. 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. Urban sprawl came to Los Angeles. VerMeulen, Michael. Curse of the Starving Class is a play by Sam Shepard, considered the first of a series on family tragedies. This is Michael's monologue as Wesley Tate, the son of. Ella Tate is the mother of the family. men who came back from the war, had to settle down, raise a family and send the kids to schooland they just couldnt handle it. That was what Shepard knew as a boy. Ella finally enters and says that she is going on a business luncheon with Taylor. Seeking 2 Actor Team for Spring
But Shepard retains the symbolic structure of his earlier plays. Act two opens on Wesley and Emma in the kitchen, where Wesley is building a new front door for the house. He compares it to a zombie invasion and takeover, where the zombies build their own city. New York: St. Martins Press, 1986. It is shocking to see a live lamb on stage and even more shocking to see it bloody and dead; similarly, the centrality of the refrigerator to every scene and the constant opening and closing of its door reminds us of the theme of hunger and starving, but Shepard refuses to nail down its meaning for us. Conservatives, however, decry feminism, blaming it for rising divorce rates and what they see as a breakdown of the nuclear family. Act Two opens with siblings Emma and Wesley hard at work on tasks that are interestingly, stereotypically gender appropriate: Emma is recreating her charts on how to properly cut a frying chicken (since her brother pissed on them in the last act), and Wesley is rebuilding the door that his father broke down. Feet. Foot kicking. Ignition grinding. eNotes.com Its humiliating to have the cops come, he says, whining a little. Seeking 2 Actor Team for Spring
Kauffmann, Stanley. Some foreigner. Ella begins to yell at Weston for pulling a Jekyll and Hyde act by changing overnight. [10], Simard, Rodney. 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. Decals peeling off their wings. Then I could picture my Dad driving it. We and our partners use cookies to Store and/or access information on a device. If Noel Cowards character were chic and elegant then Sams were real rootless and raw and I like it! publication online or last modification online. Taking pictures of the enemy. When he returns, he is wearing Westons overcoat, tennis shoes, and baseball cap, and he says that he butchered the lamb for food. Emerson is a minor character who represents the men that Weston is in debt to. Mother and son find out Weston is in debt to some dangerous men. In addition, playwright Sam Shepard is himself an actor and can be seen in over a dozen wide-release films (many with his longtime partner Jessica Lange), including Country, Places in the Heart, and The Right Stuff. 1. One foot right through the door. She climbs up and stretches out on it as Wesley, completely naked, enters. A. J. Sobczak and Frank N. Magill. Ella tells Emma that the horse is crazy and that she is too young to leave home but Emma refuses to listen. Wesley and Ella talk about Westons eagle story as the play ends. Motif [1] Others consider it part of a quintet that includes Fool for Love (1983) and A Lie of the Mind (1985). 14. online is the same, and will be the first date in the citation. Slater drops the lamb inside the fence; laughing, the two men leave, issuing another warning. Perhaps thats the reason theyre stuck where they are: broke, hungry, and fighting. Today, Los Angeles is one of the largest urban conglomerations in the world. Mom screaming. He tells the children that he has found a buyer for the house, and Emma leaves abruptly. The Castmates Who Make You Care in Beetlejuice and Tootsie. Wesley Tate is the son of the family. 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. Wesley returns, bloodied by Ellis. Curse of the Starving Class "balances dark comedy and biting satire in its look at a family fighting to stay alive," according to the Long Wharf Theatre. 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. . He is also the same man who swindled Weston into buying the useless desert property. . As the play opens, she and Wesley are both surveying the chunks of the door broken down by her husband . Breakdown; Suggested Audition Pieces; Videos; Related Products; Useful Articles; Breakdown. Can you send me character analysis of characters of Sam Shepard's play "Curse of the Starving Class"? 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. I could feel the headlights closing in. Afraid of sound. Lyons, Charles R., Shepards Family Trilogy and the Conventions of Modern Realism, in Rereading Shepard, edited by Leonard Wilcox, St. Martins Press, 1993. Download the entire Curse of the Starving Class study guide as a printable PDF! Hes plastered and doesnt want to move. 6162. Shepard makes similar realistic and mythic use of costumes; the clothes in which Weston is first seen also fit Wesley. Freezing headache. 1 Mar. How old is Wesley in "Curse ofthe Starving Class"? The play opens with Wesley putting pieces of a broken down door into a wheelbarrow. Just from my Dad coming back. They have blown up Westons car, unaware that Emma was inside. Even sleeping people I could feel. Whole body crashing. What Price Freedom? The New Republic 178 (April 8, 1978): 24-25. 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. Wesley does not want to do it because he is making the door and Emma doesn't want to do it because she is remaking her posters. The Curse Of The Starving Class - Monologue (Wesley) A monologue from the play by Sam Shepard Wesley is cleaning up shards of wood from the door his father broke down the night before during a drunken outburst. I was lying there on my back. She asks Wesley why he is wearing their father's clothes. For instance, sprinkling sand on the stage to evoke Shepards edge-of-America Western localeshe grew up on an avocado farm in Duarte, California, near Route 66as is done in the current revival of his 1977 play Curse of the Starving Class (at the Signature, under the direction of Terry Kinney), does little to get at his genius, which was not about surfaces but about how peoples lives can be mangled by their belief in surfaces. Vol. From a mile off I could tell it was the Packard by the sound of the valves. However, we have dozens of other monologues that you can read. Michael and me -- well, we're closer than most brothers and sisters. Weston asks where Ella is, and then goes into a rage when Wesley and Emma tell him where she went. 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. Gain full access to show guides, character breakdowns, auditions, monologues and more! View All Characters in Curse of the Starving Class, Curse of the Starving Class guide sections. As the play opens, she and Wesley are both surveying the chunks of the door broken down by her husband Weston. Marranca, Bonnie, ed. In a 1997 Paris Review interview, Shepard, whose own father was an alcoholic, made a powerful point about the men he grew up around. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. But treating Shepards stage paradigms superficially can lead to characterizations that miss the point of how his figures got to be heartbroken or angry in the first place. Continue with Recommended Cookies, Home | The Curse Of The Starving Class Monologue (Wesley). 2023 Cond Nast. Whats he doing? 1970s: In Los Angeles, suburbanization continues unabated. Wesley embarks upon a long monologue narrating the events of the previous night before leaving, at which point Ella begins talking to nobody in particular about the start of menstruation. Barnes, Clive, Shepards Starving Class Offers Much Food for Thought, in New York Post, March 3, 1978. Allow Necessary Cookies & Continue 1970s: Oil and gas shortages precipitate an energy crisis in the United States. Weston Tate is the father of the family and an abusive alcoholic. Weston stumbles in, even drunker, and wants to know where Ella is. Since Ella is still under the impression that Wesley is Weston, Emerson and Slater also mistake Wesley for Weston. Weston looks around and moves to the refrigerator. Taylor, a land developer, is courting Ella. Downshifting into second for the last pull up the hill. The plays action demands a working refrigerator and a working stove, yet there are no walls to define the kitchen, and the ruffled, red-checked curtains that are suspended in midair do little to confirm a concrete reality. Weston tells Wesley that he got up early and took a walk around the house and decided he wanted to stay, so he cleaned up, bought food, made a huge breakfast, and did all of the laundry. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. Finally, highway patrolman Malcolm appears with the news that Emma, having shot up the Alibi Club, is in jail. Ella tries to feign innocence and Emma storms out. When the bodys defenses fail and intruders are allowed to breed inside the body, the play tells us, the body will soon fall to those forces that threaten it. Try it today! eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Man going insane. Later, when Weston enters and finds only the lamb at home, he naturally begins a conversation. Inside has become a hollow, void place to the family, and as a result, they want outElla to Europe, Emma to Mexico, Wesley to Alaska, Weston to an alcoholic stupor. Packard disappearing. Inviting Wesley to have some breakfast, he tells him (as Wesley walks off) that he is reconsidering the idea of planting avocados. Weston is a destructive and angry man . To help, she has some suggestions for fantastic dramatic monologues for child actors. By the time she enters the action, theres nothing left for her in the fridge, not even the chicken she raised so that she could kill it and cut it up as a demonstration for the 4-H Club. Hes plastered and cant move. Ella stares at the lamb. Another risk in weak productions of Shepards work is that directors will make too little or too much of his surrealism. Planes still hanging. I could feel the space around me like a big, black world. Emma and Wesley keep opening the fridge and looking for something thats not therea crystal ball filled with absence. Man yelling. Then WESLEY'S mother, ELLA, enters slowly from down left. Alone, Ella stares at Weston asleep on the table; he sits up, they look at each other, she runs off, and he lurches toward the refrigerator, kicking artichokes out of his way. WESLEY keeps cleaning up the debris, ignoring her. Even the lamb suffers from an invasion of a harmful force in its body: maggots have infested its digestive tract. Weston tells Wesley that he has decided to stay and fix up the house instead of leaving, no matter who holds the deed. Mom calling cops. Taylor is in disbelief, and Ellis threatens him. He advises Wesley to do the same. . "Curse of the Starving Class - Dramatic Devices" Survey of Dramatic Literature Gale Cengage Disclaimer: Some of the articles on Mighty Actor include affiliate links to sites like Amazon, Skillshare, and others. Still, Ella and Wesley both convey their hurt and their ambivalence toward Westons power over them. First gear grinding. Emerson, a small well dressed thug, enters, giggling about the explosion. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Weston considers fleeing to Mexico, and Wesley muses about finding Taylor to get the money for the desert land back. This play cannot be decoded as an allegory in which we can reduce the refrigerator to a representation of spiritual hunger, the lamb to a representation of sacrifice and innocence, and the door to a representation of the barrier between the family and the outside world. Word Count: 302. A French Villages Radical Vision of a Good Life with Alzheimers. Emma returns, still furious, and the three begin an argument about the starving class and whether or not they are part of it. He remembers a time he was castrating sheep and appeased an eagle by throwing testicles up on a tin roof where the bird could get them. Word Count: 1160. Caught up in this are families such as the one in Curse of the Starving Class, whose land is coveted by subdivision developers like Taylor. the maintenance!. The lights come up on Wesley, building a new door, and Emma, in a Western shirt, jodhpurs, and riding boots, making new charts for her demonstration.
Malcolm enters and informs the family that Emma has been arrested for riding her horse through the Alibi Club and shooting up the bar. 2023 eNotes.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. "Curse of the Starving . 28 Feb. 2023
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