Buried Child (13 page)
Authors: Sam Shepard
HALIE'S VOICE:
Dodge? Is that you, Dodge? Tilden was right about the corn, you know. I've never seen such corn. Have you taken a look at it lately? Dazzling. Tall as a man
already. This early in the year. Carrots, too. Potatoes. Peas. It's like a paradise out there, Dodge. You oughta take a look. A miracle. I've never seen it like this. Maybe the rain did something. Maybe it was the rain.
(As
HALIE
keeps talking offstage,
TILDEN
appears from left, dripping with mud from the knees down. His arms and hands are covered with mud. In his hands he carries the corpse of a small child at chest level, staring down at it. The corpse mainly consists of bones wrapped in muddy, rotten cloth. He moves slowly downstage toward the staircase, ignoring
VINCE
on the sofa,
VINCE
keeps staring at the ceiling as though
TILDEN
weren't there. As
HALIE
continues,
TILDEN
slowly makes his way up the stairs. His eyes never leave the corpse of the child. The lights keep fading.)
Good hard rain. Takes everything straight down deep to the roots. The rest takes care of itself. You can't force a thing to grow. You can't interfere with it. It's all hidden. Unseen. You just gotta wait ‘til it pops up out of the ground. Tiny little shoot. Tiny little white shoot. All hairy and fragile. Strong though. Strong enough to crack the earth even. It's a miracle, Dodge. I've never seen a crop like this in my whole life. Maybe it's the sun. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's the sun.
(TILDEN
disappears above. Silence. Lights go to black)
END OF PLAY
A VINTAGE ORIGINAL, FEBRUARY 2006
Copyright
©
1977, 1979, 1997, 2006 by Sam Shepard
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by
Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
Originally published in the United States in the collection
Buried Child, Seduced, & Suicide in Bb
by Urizen Books, Inc., New York, in
1979. Revised in 1997 by Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York.
CAUTION:
This play is fully protected, in whole, in part, or in any form, under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Empire including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the copyright union, and is subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, radio, television, recitation, and public reading, are strictly reserved. All inquiries for performance rights should be addressed to the authors agent, Judy Boals, Judy Boals, Inc.,
307 West 38th Street, #812, New York, NY 10018.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shepard, Sam, 1943-
Buried child : a play / Sam Shepard.—Rev. ed.
p. cm.
1. Farm life—Drama. 2. Family—Drama. I. Title.
PS3569.H394 B87 2006
812’.54—dc22
2005054691
eISBN: 978-0-307-49427-6
v3.0