Where Wesley seems angry with her for provoking Weston to anger, Ella holds that the incident was entirely Weston's fault. Ella Tate is the mother of the family. Barnes, Clive, Shepards Starving Class Offers Much Food for Thought, in New York Post, March 3, 1978. Door slams. Ella does not tell Emma that she plans to sell the house, but Emma tells Ella that she dreams of moving to Mexico and becoming a mechanic. Download the entire Curse of the Starving Class study guide as a printable PDF! Obviously, these two motifs are related to each other, for disease is the intrusion of an entity that should be kept outside the body. Emma, by way of contrast, often shouts her lines from offstage. However, many people move back into the central city to work in the burgeoning entertainment industry. Ella. Ella Tate Curse of the Starving Class. Property he had there has proved worthless, so he decides to sell the familys home. Emerson, a small well dressed thug, enters, giggling about the explosion. Weston exits and Emma enters. The curtain falls as Wesley and Weston discuss how to rid the lamb of the maggots that are infesting its digestive tract. When he pushes the wheelbarrow off, Ella begins a conversation about menstruation that seems directed at another person, but no one is there. He enters, drunk, and begins yelling at his son, Wesley. Inviting Wesley to have some breakfast, he tells him (as Wesley walks off) that he is reconsidering the idea of planting avocados. Taylor is in disbelief, and Ellis threatens him. Emma tells Taylor that her family has violent tendencies caused by some family members having nitroglycerin, which is a very explosive element, in their blood. Jump-start your essay with our outlining tool to make sure you have all the main points of your essay covered. . However, the tom cat won't let go because if it does it will fall and die. Disclaimer: Some of the articles on Mighty Actor include affiliate links to sites like Amazon, Skillshare, and others. All monologues are property and copyright of their owners. "Curse of the Starving . "Curse of the Starving Class - Literary Style" Drama for Students Laws against marital rape, for instance, gain ground in many states that had previously resisted them. Gale Cengage The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child. Weston yells at him, telling him that they didn't need the food, because the refrigerator is full for once. Emma asks the refrigerator why it doesn't have any food because they aren't part of the starving class. Sam Shepard: A Casebook. Ella falls asleep on the table and Wesley, dressed in Westons old clothes, enters. Hart, Lynda, Sam Shepards Metaphorical Stages, Greenwood Press, 1987. 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. Mumbling about his experience flying planes in the Second World War, he passes out again. I could smell the avocado blossoms. Wesley exits at the sounds of his fathers approach. Acts 1 and 2 both begin with characters engaged in simple question-and-answer conversations which serve to provide expository information necessary to an understanding of what has occurred before the start of the play or between the acts. As she speaks, her daughter, Emma enters and joins the conversation in progress. 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. I am aware that I have taken on characters that are outside of my RACE, GENDER, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, DIALECT, and AGE. publication in traditional print. These objects are indeed symbolic, but they are meant to hit the audience with their power. Slater also brings the dead lamb's carcass into the house. Then I heard the Packard coming up the hill. The man tells her that he was going to knock but that there was no door. eNotes.com Curse of the Starving Class premiered Off-Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival, on March 2, 1978, presented by Joseph Papp. The second date is today's Bulls. I could feel myself lying far below them on my bed like I was on the ocean and overhead they were on reconnaissance. 14. Manage Settings DeRose, David J. Sam Shepard. While Wesley is bathing, Weston yells in to him that he agrees to become an avocado grower for the Grower's Association. 14. date the date you are citing the material. Feet. Waiting to get out. Weston in new clean clothes and the lamb in its enclosure are on stage, and Weston is telling the lamb his story about castrating lambs and throwing their testes onto a roof for an eagle to eat. 2425. Taylor says that any deal Weston makes is void because he is considered incompetent by the state. Instead, it chooses to bring the eagle down, even if it means certain doom for the cat as well. Emma begins a rant about how she raised the chicken and hand fed it every day, then killed and cleaned it and her mother has gone and boiled it. "A Little Princess" "I love this monologue because of its sincerity. Ella sits up and screams, and Emma departs. . Bottoms, Stephen J., The Theatre of Sam Shepard: States of Crisis, Cambridge University Press, 1998. Ella re-enters with groceries and throws the artichokes on the floor. 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. Having the set self-destruct is meant to indicate, of course, that trouble is on the way, but why make such an overdetermined move when Shepard clearly reveals, in the ensuing dialogue and action, how troubling the story were entering is? Their daughter, Emma, is a smart and rebellious teen, itching to get away from her crazy home. 2003 eNotes.com The last date is today's View All Characters in Curse of the Starving Class, THIS FEATURE IS ONLY AVAILABLE FOR PRO MEMBERS. Gale Cengage It is the next day. He pulls out the. The prospect of selling the land to real estate developers has a significance far greater than the loss of a mere house, but his family. Ad Choices. New York: Garland, 1988. Emma walks out. Later, when Weston enters and finds only the lamb at home, he naturally begins a conversation. Once she is arrested she says that she gains her freedom by offering sexual bribes to the sheriff. His violent nature and utter lack of accountability are the crux of many of the family's issues. As a dad, Weston is an amalgam of brute force and regret, and thats the only legacy that his son will ever have. Weston then tells them that he has already found someone who will buy the land and pay in cash. Ella returns with groceries and says she knows there is a curse working against family. Ella Tate is the wife of Weston and mother of Wesley and Emma Tate. Wesley tells Weston that his creditors are going to kill him. By signing up, you agree to our User Agreement and Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement. 28 Feb. 2023 , Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. New York, NY, Linda Ray As she cooks, Wesley recounts the nights events, making car sounds as he pushes the wheelbarrow off. Christian H. Moe. Research Playwrights, Librettists, Composers and Lyricists, See more characters from 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. Hes woken up with dew on the hood before. Downshifting into second for the last pull up the hill. Beaufort, John, Off-Broadway: Tale of a Blighted Family, in Christian Science Monitor, March 3, 1978. 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. Finding the chicken she butchered for her demonstration gone, she storms off. Westons only way of being a father is to exercise his paternal privileges, which, in Shepard-land, include wreaking havoc, fucking up your kids and your wife, and squandering the future; we learn by the second act that, in order to pay off loan sharks, Weston has already sold the property, to a bar owner named Ellis (Esau Pritchett, who has a lot of strength and appeal, though Kinney doesnt temper his performance, either). Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Randall argues here that, although Curse of the Starving Class is indeed a more realistic play than the works that preceded it, Shepard retains a use of language in this play that we do not ordinarily associate with realistic drama., "Curse of the Starving Class - Bibliography and Further Reading" Drama for Students English. . Wesley deduces that Taylor is the one who sold Weston worthless desert property in the first place. 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. Man throwing up. I guess we had to be. Sources But with the millions of people who now lived there, there simply was not enough room in the city. 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. He has brought a bag of artichokes that he bought while visiting his worthless desert property. I could feel myself in my bed in my room in this house in this town in this state in this country. Cohn, Ruby. Jump-start your essay with our outlining tool to make sure you have all the main points of your essay covered. An example of data being processed may be a unique identifier stored in a cookie. Wesley describes the suburbanization going on around them as a zombie invasion and tells her he dreams of going to Alaska. She then pulls out a wad of cash and tells him that she's taking their mother's car and going into crime. He then came inside and took a bath, made a big breakfast, drank some coffee, and did everyone's laundry. Ella decides to take matters into her own hands and puts the house up for sale without consulting her husband. She has just started her first period, and has several mood swings during the play. 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. We dont see Weston for a while, but hes everywhere in this run-down home, or everywhere that violence and destruction have taken place, including in his sons and his wifes consciousness. Ella warns Emma that swimming during her period could kill her. Even tractors sitting in the wetness, waiting for the sun to come up. Like the stock gangsters whose entrance signals the end of the play, these symbols break down the illusion of reality. Wesley wanders in, dazed and naked, wet from his bath. Emma is with him, and the two of them discuss the potential sale of the house and Ellas relationship with Taylor. His mother, Ella (Maggie Siff), enters, wondering why her son is doing what hes doingcleaning up after the guy who broke the door down, otherwise known as Weston (David Warshofsky), Wesleys father and Ellas spouse. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates. Ella pushes all the laundry to the floor and lies on the table. I could feel the presence of all the people outside, at night, in the dark. Wesley enters, sets up a small fenced enclosure in the kitchen, exits, and reenters with a lamb. But Shepard retains the symbolic structure of his earlier plays. Monologues for Females: THAT DAY (adapted from Inside/Out by Michael Scanlon). Mans voice. . When Wesley tells him that Ella is thinking of selling the house, Weston explodes and threatens to kill her and Taylor. Realism, a style of drama that seeks to represent the world on the stage just as it is in real life, was out of favor in the 1960s, the decade in which Shepard began writing. Emerson is a minor character who represents the men that Weston is in debt to. On the other hand, all the members of the family, except for Ella, are given long monologues which are almost soliloquies. Join the StageAgent community Breakdown. Allow Necessary Cookies & Continue Ella goes downtown to get Emma out of jail. In act 1, while Ella prepares her breakfast, Wesley has a long speech in which he recounts his sense of life while lying in bed, not simply on this night but also on many other nights. Whole body crashing. She first tries to run away by taking the family horse, but it throws her off and drags her through the mud, so she comes back. Then I could picture my dad driving it. WESLEY I'm doing it. . Freezing headache. 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. 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