Curse of the Starving Class

“[Stage direction]: In the down right corner is a pile of wooden debris, torn screen, etc., which are the remains of a broken door.”

The first lines of Curse of the Starving Class—the stage direction describing the Tate family’s kitchen, the play’s sole setting—indicate a long history of volatility, vulnerability, and self-destructiveness in the form of a demolished door. It’s soon clear that it’s the door to the outside and was shattered by Weston, the family patriarch, in a drunken rage. The ruins of the door (the first objects that the stage lights reveal) illuminate Weston’s reckless, profligate behavior, which has long wreaked havoc on his family’s security and future, leaving them vulnerable to threats from outside. Throughout the first act, none of the characters make a move to repair the door, signifying their numbed acceptance of a family “curse.”

“WESLEY: […] I could feel myself in my bed in my room in this house in this town in this state in this country. I could feel this country close like it was part of my bones. I could feel the presence of all the people outside, at night, in the dark.”

Weston’s son, Wesley, describing how he heard his father drunkenly vandalize the door, launches into a poetic vignette that serves almost no expository purpose. Wryly evocative of Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and other Transcendental verse, Wesley’s reverie shows that he’s a dreamer. Dreamers are common in Sam Shepard’s plays: powerless people who seek transcendence via the magic of words rather than material actions or emotional connection with loved ones. Significantly, Wesley delivers his