Then I could picture my Dad driving it. Every resident of the Village Landais has dementiaand the autonomy to spend each day however they please. publication in traditional print. A pop of metal. Ella. I could feel the presence of all the people outside, at night, in the dark. Whatever the cause, the Tates will do just about anything to raise themselves out of the downward spiral into which theyve fallen. Ellis represents the greed and controlling nature of business owners and the tendency of these people to take unfair advantage of each other and people below them. Marranca, Bonnie, ed. Wesley then begins to gorge himself on all of the food in the refrigerator. Gale Cengage Wesley, who has been listening to this story, then asks what happens next. The lifters have a sound like nothing else. They finish the story, saying that a tom cat had come to sniff around in the testes and the eagle picked it up. Hes plastered and cant move. Ella tries to get Wesley to go down and stop Emma from taking the horse. The second is the date of Manage Settings Whenand where doesTheCurse of the Starving Class take place? Ella mistakenly calls Wesley Weston. I could feel myself lying far below them on my bed like I was on the ocean and overhead they were on reconnaissance. . My heart was pounding. Continue with Recommended Cookies, Home | The Curse Of The Starving Class Monologue (Wesley). To view the purposes they believe they have legitimate interest for, or to object to this data processing use the vendor list link below. Ed. In the night. Suspended in air, left and right, are faded curtains. He tells Weston that he has butchered the lamb for food. Emma asks the refrigerator why it doesn't have any food because they aren't part of the starving class. Solutions . They swipe at each other viciously over their conflicting hopes and dreams until they rip each other to shreds. . Ella enters, asks why the lamb is back in the kitchen, and tells Weston that she has been at the jail, visiting Emma. Wesley tells him to take the Packard and escape to Mexico. sound like? Sam Shepard: A Casebook. Pushing the clothes to the floor, she falls asleep on the table. Dad crashing away. He and Slater, another minor character, only appear at the end of the production when they blow up Weston's car for compensation. The curse on the family is described by both women as something that breeds internally in Weston and Wesley and is inevitable. 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). 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. Weston stumbles in, even drunker, and wants to know where Ella is. Vol. Shelves: plays, aty20. Word Count: 269. From a mile off I could tell it was the Packard by the sound of the valves. We're what the school psychologist calls -- products of a broken home. The last date is today's Randall, Phyllis R., Adapting to Reality: Language in Shepards Curse of the Starving Class, in Sam Shepard: A Casebook, edited by Kimball King, Garland, 1988. Jump-start your essay with our outlining tool to make sure you have all the main points of your essay covered. The Castmates Who Make You Care in Beetlejuice and Tootsie. Shifting unconsciously. A 1994 film adaptation of the same name stars James Woods (Weston), Kathy Bates (Ella), Henry Thomas (Wesley), Randy Quaid (Taylor), and Jim Fitzpatrick (Emerson). Taylor leaves, and Wesley yells at the policeman to arrest him for being a confidence man. The tom cat and the eagle start fighting in midair, with the cat clawing out the eagle's chest, and the eagle trying to drop it. SUZIE. . weve done it again! Wesley and Emma then argue over who is going to go add water to the artichokes that are boiling on the stove. Ella, in curlers, wearing a bathrobe, is angry with Weston for having broken the door during the night, but brightens at finding bread and bacon in the refrigerator. View All Characters in Curse of the Starving Class, Curse of the Starving Class guide sections. Obviously, these two motifs are related to each other, for disease is the intrusion of an entity that should be kept outside the body. The entire upkeep of the farm falls on the shoulders of their idealistic son, Wesley, the only one who seems to have some hope for the family left. Emma is with him, and the two of them discuss the potential sale of the house and Ellas relationship with Taylor. Ella goes downtown to get Emma out of jail. Curse of the Starving Class Wesley, in sweatshirt, jeans and cowboy boots picks up pieces of a broken door and throws them methodically into an old wheelbarrow. Authors Series, this book provides a concise introduction to Shepards life, short descriptions of almost all of his works up to States of Shock, and discussions of the themes and techniques that characterize Shepards work as a whole. Sergeant Malcom is the police officer who arrives at the house to inform Ella that Emma has been arrested for riding a horse into the Alibi Club and shooting it up. Wesley tells Weston that his creditors are going to kill him. Even all the sleeping animals. Dads voice. She participates in 4-H, she is an excellent student, and she wants to make something of herself. She then becomes angry with the refrigerator and slams it shut. goose eggs! Me, the enemy. Taylor is a lawyer who is involved in real estate and is looking to buy the property from Ella. 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. Yes I am aware =)#Respecttheplaywright #ZakiyyahBG #Monologues#Bestmonologues #SamShepard #Curseofthestarvingclassmonologue #Ella Weston explains his new outlook: He took a bath, walked around the place naked, cleaned everything, ate a good breakfast, and decided to fix things up. Ella enters and she and Weston discuss Emma's shooting up of the club. New York: Garland, 1988. The speculators and developers then began building subdivisions in the areas immediately surrounding the city. They are realistic as stage properties, but the sheer quantity Weston brings home is obsessive, imparting a meaning beyond their food value. Weston talks to the lamb briefly, and then begins putting the groceries, which turn out to only be desert artichokes, in the refrigerator. Cars line up for gasoline, and President Ford appoints an energy czar to head U.S. energy policy efforts. The conventions of dialogue in the play again present this mixture. I could smell the avocado blossoms. Man yelling. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. Wesley returns, bloodied by Ellis. Act III When Weston finally comes home, carrying a bag of artichokes that nobody really wants to eat, he discovers a live lamb that Wesley brought in because it has maggots. Wesley exits at the sounds of his fathers approach. Ella pushes all the laundry to the floor and lies on the table. Property he had there has proved worthless, so he decides to sell the familys home. Makes me feel lonely. Ellas loneliness, or the incredible amount of adrenaline she has to produce in order to keep her body togetherIm not sure about her soul; shes not that deepmakes her hungry. Swaying very quietly like they were being blown by someones breath. They say that they blew up Westons car. Returning, Emma asks, What kind of a family is this?. "Curse of the Starving Class - Dramatic Devices" Survey of Dramatic Literature No sound. Emma, by way of contrast, often shouts her lines from offstage. The play presents a seemingly bizarre family and a series of events involving the sale of its home, but actually pointing to the disintegration of the family. 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. eNotes.com eNotes.com Foot kicking hard through door. Whatever the cause, the Tates will do just about anything to raise themselves out of the downward spiral into which they've fallen. Michael Venzor was featured in a 2011 Equity Showcase of "Curse of the Starving Class" by Sam Shepard. I guess we had to be. 1. His wife, Ella, is utterly burned-out and will do just about anything to leave her husband behind. eNotes.com, Inc. As she leaves, Ella wakes up, mistakes Wesley for Weston, and tells him to go after Emma because she's too young to leave on her own. Then, looking in that bloody fridge, he, like his children, finds nothing: zero! Jump-start your essay with our outlining tool to make sure you have all the main points of your essay covered. SHARE. 2003 eNotes.com 6162. Mumbling about his experience flying planes in the Second World War, he passes out again. Ella sits up and screams, and Emma departs. Emma leaves; then Taylor and Ella leave for a business meeting. Wesley is left on stage, talking to the lamb, when Westons voice is heard outside. Woman screaming. Part of the immensely useful Twaynes U.S. Ella is a stressed out woman trying to cope with intense emotional damage and frustration. Word Count: 958. Feet. Afraid of sound. Wood splitting. New York: Grove, 1982. Further Reading Curse of the Starving Class is a play by Sam Shepard, considered the first of a series on family tragedies. 28 Feb. 2023 , Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. Shepard makes similar realistic and mythic use of costumes; the clothes in which Weston is first seen also fit Wesley. At times, Wesley loses patience with his family members, as evidenced by his lack of sympathy for his sister's ruined 4-H project, to which he responds by urinating on her charts and suggesting that his sister do something truly useful with her time. Caught up in this are families such as the one in Curse of the Starving Class, whose land is coveted by subdivision developers like Taylor. Later, when Wesley and Ella talk, Ella tells him that she is going to sell the house and use the money to go to Europe. His violent nature and utter lack of accountability are the crux of many of the family's issues. However, we have dozens of other monologues that you can read. Every time I see a fair-to-middling production of a brilliant play by the irreplaceable Sam Shepard, who died in 2017, at the age of seventy-three, I leave the theatre with conflicted feelings. Man throwing up. Weston then tells them that he has already found someone who will buy the land and pay in cash. Later, she becomes so angry about Ellis buying their house, she rides the family horse into his bar and shoots the place full of holes. Wesley refuses to stop Emma, and Ella begins to tell him about her plans to sell the house. When Kinneys staging of Curse begins, we hear snatches of rock and roll as the lights come up on a large, dirty kitchen whose door to the outside world has been busted in. Two motifs, very near each other in meaning, recur throughout Curse of the Starving Class: images of inside/outside and images of disease and sickness. As the crisis ends, both politicians and the public realize that these shortages were created arti- ficially by oil-producing countries and oil companies in order to boost profits. Urban Sprawl Ink and Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus Play with History. [1] Others consider it part of a quintet that includes Fool for Love (1983) and A Lie of the Mind (1985). He tells Wesley and Emma that he has already purchased the house from Weston and shows them the cash. Ella leaves with Taylor, telling Wesley to take the lamb with the maggots back outside. Some foreigner. He enters, drunk, and begins yelling at his son, Wesley. Wesley Tate is the son of the family. The three of them converse tensely until Ella enters. Wheels screaming off down hill. Wesley re-enters and starts yelling to the offstage Emma about her chicken. I could smell the avocado blossoms. Peacocks. eNotes.com will help you with any book or any question. If Noel Cowards character were chic and elegant then Sams were real rootless and raw and I like it! Who or what can fill these people up? DeRose, David J. Sam Shepard. Log in here. Since Ella is still under the impression that Wesley is Weston, Emerson and Slater also mistake Wesley for Weston. Ellis is the owner of a bar, the Alibi Club, where Weston spends his time when he is not at home. Like the stock gangsters whose entrance signals the end of the play, these symbols break down the illusion of reality. Back down driveway. When Wesley tells her that there will not be enough money from the house to move to Europe Ella gets angry that Wesley is ruining her dream. Weston, slightly drunk, is a big man; he wears baggy pants, tennis shoes, an overcoat, and a baseball cap. Ellis says that Weston must have sent Emma down there and takes back his $1,500 and runs off to his club, swearing he will get revenge on Weston. Sign up today to unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. Ellis enters, laughing at the passed-out Weston who is slumped on the kitchen table. 353 subscribers Episode 10: Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class Sam Shepard wasn't just a playwright but an actor himself, fully into the arts. The play opens on Wesley, who is loading broken pieces of the familys front door into a wheelbarrow. On the one hand, I want you to experience the extraordinary power of Shepards alternately disciplined and unwieldy languagelanguage that pulsates with a unique imaginationbut, on the other, I dont want you to see and hear what Shepard brought to the American stage in less than ideal circumstances. VerMeulen, Michael. Hello, this is Emma's monologue from Curse of the Starving Class by Sam Shepard. Try it today! The lights go down with him staring in the open fridge. . Wesley protests feebly. If you would like to change your settings or withdraw consent at any time, the link to do so is in our privacy policy accessible from our home page.. When the bodys defenses fail and intruders are allowed to breed inside the body, the play tells us, the body will soon fall to those forces that threaten it. Sound of door not opening. Join StageAgent today and unlock amazing theatre resources and opportunities. Weston is a destructive and angry man . Even sleeping people I could feel. From a mile off I could tell it was the Packard by the sound of the valves. This is Michael's monologue as Wesley Tate, the son of. Monologues. When: what time period Where: city and state. With Curse of the Starving Class, Shepard moved more toward realism, to the social dramas of such classic realists as Ibsen. Ignition grinding. 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