Gordon Edelstein, Artistic Director of the Long Wharf Theatre, has just sent around “An Important Message,” which appears to be a new variant on the short essays he writes for the Long Wharf programs. If you’re on the Long Wharf email list, you’ve gotten it.
Basically, it’s an informative promo vehicle for upcoming Long Wharf stuff. The email asks for year-end donations to Long Wharf, and touts the theater’s next mainstage production, Sam Shepard’s The Curse of the Starving Class.
Not the cheeriest of shows to bring up during the holiday season. Edelstein describes it himself as “a dangerous work, a disturbing work,” one which depicts “lower middle-class Americans across this country struggling desperately to survive in a culture that is increasingly a conglomerate culture, a mall culture, a homogenized culture, a culture dominated by millionaires and conformity.”
Actually, balancing the checkbook this month after buying Christmas gifts puts a lot of us very much in the mood of a Sam Shepard play, which tend to be exercises in survival, and where folks have pretty much given up on saving money and are trying to save their sanity instead.
When the Yale Repertory Theatre presented Curse of the Starving Class back in 2000, that was a wintertime affair as well, opening in early Februrary as the Long Wharf’s Curse will. The Rep cast those 12 years ago starred Kristine Nielsen, Guy Boyd and Steve Mellor. The Long Wharf has announced that theirs will feature Judith Ivey, who previously graced the theater in Glass Menagerie and Shirley Valentine. Both those prior appearances were directed by Edelstein, and so shall this one be.
It’s a good time for Sam Shepard revivals in Connecticut, from community to college to regional productions. The Town Players of Newtown did the playwright’s 1978 drama Buried Child a year ago. The Yale Cabaret did a kick-ass Cowboy Mouth a couple of months back, the undergraduate Yale Dramat presented Lie of the Mind in October, and now comes Curse of the Starving Class at the Long Wharf. Adam Rapp, who teaches at the Yale School of Drama, just directed a well-reviewed revival of True West at the Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky.
To cap off this little Shepardfest, here’s a thing I meant to post when Yale Cabaret did its Cowboy Mouth. Consider it a Christmas present from a Shepard (before the kings arrive).
The music in that production was so appropriate, so well-played (by Mickey Theis) that it had me rushing home to dig up a rock & roll tribute to the play which I remembered from years ago. A local rockabilly band, Gone Native, used to play it, so I contacted lead singer/guitarist Gary Mezzi, who responded:
“Bill Davis of Dash Rip Rock takes credit for that masterpiece. Dash’s drummer Fred went on to form Cowboy Mouth the band, so they obviously have some obsession with the play. In the live version, Bill makes a funny reference to it being inspired by the play.”
Dash Rip Rock played numerous times in New Haven, often with Gone Native sharing the bill. Here’s a rendition of the song by Dash Rip Rock, taped at a Chicago club gig in 1997:
And here are the lyrics. (Johnny Ace, Blaze Storm, crow and “rock & roll Jesus” are among the numerous direct references to Cowboy Mouth the play.)
Well, Johnny Ace spun the chamber of his cowboy gun,
He was tired and weathered from the beating of the Texas sun.
Didn’t even cry, stuck it in his eye,
Pulled the trigger and he said, “Bye bye.”
Just another singer damming up the waters of life.
Blaze Storm, peeled in the fury of a Vegas bar,
While the howlin’ dogs tried to take her just a little too far.
Narrow escape – ready to crow,
Told the people things they didn’t wanna know.
Just another singer damming up the waters of life.
Well the story of the young boy,
Born in the bible belt South.
Workin’ hard on dyin’ and always tryin’,
To be a rock and roll Jesus with a cowboy mouth