'Buried Child' features strong acting

There is a scene in the Detour Production of Sam Shepard's "Buried Child" that will stay with me forever. Beautiful young Shelly is left alone in a house full of misfits when Bradley, in a foul mood, thumps into the room on his wooden leg. After the shock of finding Shelly in his parents' house, he verbally accosts her and forces her to sit down on a milking stool. \n"Open your mouth," he commands.\nShe does, and he sticks his first two fingers into her mouth. Upon removing them he smirks and says. "Now stay right where you are."\nAfter this disgusting display, the lights go down for what seemed like an eternity, giving the audience time to stew on what just happened in the claustrophobic performance space of the John Waldron Arts Center.\nDirector Joe Gaines creates many such disturbing scenes in his production of "Buried Child." Set on a dead Illinois farm owned by a nearly dead elderly couple, it tells the story of a family with dark secrets that have torn its members apart from the inside out. \nDodge, the family patriarch who used to rule with an iron fist, now spends his days wasting away on the sofa drinking sour mash and chain smoking. His wife, Halie, constantly nags him about his health, but spends most of her time out courting the local priest. Their sons include a former all-American,Tilden, whose mind has come undone, the deceased Ansel, who was the family martyr, and Bradley, whose handicap always made him the family scapegoat.\nTheir lives of misery and solitude are interrupted by the appearance of Shelly and Vince from Los Angeles. Vince is Tilden's long-lost son who has decided to get back in touch with his roots. Upon arriving at the house, he is shocked to find that neither his father nor his grandfather remember him. From there, the play explores not just the struggle to find one's place within a family, but the burden which having that place might bring.\nSome of the roles are played powerfully by the actors. As Dodge, Mark G. McIntyre plays the former tyrant as a man who has forgotten he used to be a monster that destroyed everything that stood in his way. Years of drinking, smoking and living a generally unhealthy lifestyle have robbed the old man of his power. McIntyre plays Dodge's ancient age powerfully. Not a moment went by when I did not believe that he actually was an ailing man in his eighties.\nMike Price as Bradley embodies the man's ignorant evil. His character has suffered through the horrors of his father's aggression, and now bears a grudge as large as the wooden leg he stands on. \nWhen he was young, his father would amuse himself and others by throwing the leg out onto the lawn and making Bradley fetch it. \nNow, with his father old and infirm and his brothers either dead or emotionally unbalanced, he has a new-found power over them. Price embodies the ruthlessness of Bradley's nature to frightening effect. At the end of both the first and second acts, Bradley commands the stage as the lights go out, leaving the audience uneasy in the darkness before the intermission lights come up.\nAnother strong performance comes from Stephanie Harrison, who plays Shelly, the outsider who breaks down the barriers of the family's structure. Harrison does this with a graceful and intelligent portrayal. She does not play Shelly as the typical West-Coast airhead, but brings real depth and emotion to her performance.\n"Buried Child" is a drama in which the people are more important than lessons or themes. The performances in the show remind us of that because the performers have made their characters into real people, for the most part. This, if nothing else, makes "Buried Child" worthwhile.