PORT TOWNSEND — This play is much like having a dream. The people and the events defy the rules of the waking world. And everything feels heightened, as director David Hillman says.
That is quintessential Sam Shepard in “Buried Child,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning story unfolding at the Chameleon Theater, 800 W. Park Ave., this weekend through Jan. 31.
The One-Time Players, a cast and crew of local theater artists, are presenting “Child” out of their love of theater and of Shepard’s writing. The all-volunteer company raises the curtain at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and at 2:30 p.m. Sundays, with seats at $15. No one will be turned away, though, for lack of funds.
In “Buried Child,” the dream is itself about a dream: the American one. It’s also about family secrets, and the powerful hold they can have on us.
The clan at hand includes Dodge (Lawrason Driscoll) and Halie (Michelle Hensel), husband and wife living on the family farm in Illinois. The place has gone downhill, and nothing has grown here since the Dust Bowl days — or so Halie and Dodge believe.
Their son Tilden, played by Peter Wiant, shows up. He’s returned home from New Mexico, and is searching for something lost in his childhood.
He doesn’t know what, said Wiant.
But he’s willing to go after the truth. In the journey toward it, we meet Tilden’s son Vince (Jason Noltemeier) and Vince’s girlfriend Shelly (Katie Kowalski), who receive a less-than-warm welcome at the farmhouse. Complicating things further are David Wayne Johnson as Bradley, Dodge and Halie’s middle son and an amputee, and Scott Nollette as a Protestant minister known as Father Dewis.
“Buried Child” is one dark tale — but like life, there’s comedy stirred in.
“The characters are just very unique and odd,” said Hensel. In the search for the truth about the family’s past, there is a release.
Hensel said she can relate to her character, a woman in her 60s for whom life has not turned out the way she envisioned.
“But she’s not ready to lie down and die,” the actress said.
“She’s clawing her way out of the situation she’s in.”
Don’t be put off by the play’s title, she added; in Sam Shepard’s hands, words have layers of meaning. The story is about fallow ground and new growth, betrayal and truth-telling. This play, like Shepard’s others such as “Fool for Love” — now a revival on Broadway — “will give you a lot to think about,” said Hensel.
The One-Time Players are in fact on their second family saga. The ensemble, which staged the Tracy Letts play “August: Osage County” in 2013 at the Port Townsend High School auditorium, opted for a much cozier venue this time.
“I really like the way the whole production is being done. It’s very stripped down,” Wiant said. Key City Public Theatre designer Terry Tennesen created the set while Ian Keith is the lighting designer and Ginger McNew the costumer.
“It’s a small theater with only 32 seats,” Wiant noted, “and it really works for the play. On one hand it’s kind of spare, [but] there’s a ton of real human interaction going on that’s very compelling.”
He added that his character, Tilden, helps to bring some redemption and peace to the family. And that, after all, “is something we’re all sort of looking for.”
