A Director with a Vision
When director Gary Sinise decided to tackle “Buried Child,” he wasn’t just staging a play; he was bringing together two titans of American theater: the gritty, hyper-realistic style of his Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the mythic, haunted landscape
of playwright Sam Shepard. The Chicago-based Steppenwolf was known for its raw, ensemble-driven approach, a style that seemed tailor-made for the barely suppressed violence and dark humor of Shepard’s dysfunctional family drama. Sinise’s choice to mount the play first at Steppenwolf before a Broadway transfer meant the production would be forged in a crucible of artistic integrity, far from the commercial pressures of New York. This decision shaped the entire project, prioritizing actors who shared that hard-nosed, character-first ethos over chasing big-name stars for the marquee.
The Quintessential Shepard Actor
At the heart of the play is Dodge, the dying, alcoholic patriarch chained to his sofa and a terrible secret. For the role, Sinise cast James Gammon, an actor who seemed born to speak Shepard’s words. Gammon wasn't just a great character actor; he was a Shepard specialist, having appeared in numerous productions of his plays, including “Curse of the Starving Class” and “A Lie of the Mind.” Shepard himself saw Gammon as the physical embodiment of his work’s troubled father figures. Shepard noted that Gammon had a familiarity with the “alcoholic Midwesterners who leave their families and get lost in the Southwestern desert” that populated his imagination. Casting Gammon wasn’t a choice; it was a recognition of a perfect match, an actor whose personal history and artistic soul resonated with the playwright's own. His performance, which earned him a Tony Award nomination, became the definitive portrayal of Dodge.
Keeping It in the Family
To build out the world around Gammon, Sinise turned to his own theatrical family. He cast fellow Steppenwolf co-founder Terry Kinney in the pivotal role of Tilden, the eldest son who returns home mysteriously broken. Kinney’s presence grounded the production in the Steppenwolf aesthetic, ensuring the ensemble worked as a single, intuitive unit. This was more than just hiring a talented actor; it was about importing a shared artistic language onto the stage. The rest of the cast, including Lois Smith as the matriarch Halie and Leo Burmester as the menacing son Bradley, were seasoned stage actors capable of navigating the play's tricky blend of horror and absurd comedy. The result was a company that felt less like a collection of performers and more like a real, deeply wounded family.
A Play Reborn for a New Generation
The 1996 revival wasn't just a restaging; it was a reinvention, with Sam Shepard himself actively involved. Feeling that the original 1978 version was “verbose and overblown,” Shepard reworked the script for Sinise’s production. He streamlined the text and sharpened the play's dark humor, tailoring it to the specific strengths of the Steppenwolf-led cast. In a 1996 interview, Shepard credited the new production with helping him finally "solve" the play's problems, allowing its humor to surface without sacrificing its underlying dread. This symbiotic relationship between playwright, director, and cast is a rarity. The actors weren't just interpreting a classic text; they were active participants in creating the definitive version of a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece.
