Playwright: Sam Shepard
At: Next Theatre Company
Phone: ( 847 ) 475-1875; $20-$35
Runs through: Oct. 16
Sam Shepard writes realistic plays and surrealistic plays. It's clear early in the game that The God of Hell is surreal; a darkly skewed sitcom in which a Wisconsin dairy farmer, his wife and their bucolic farm fall victim to a shadowy, paranoid U.S. government that sees treason and conspiracy under every rock and heifer. Shepard's plays aren't overtly political very often, so The God of Hell is a strong call to pay attention to our real world Federal government as it abridges habeas corpus guarantees and condones torture in Iraq, Guantanamo and perhaps even at home.
Among familiar Shepard hallmarks are the burlesque irony of the language—Wisconsin is described as a region of 'taxidermy and cheese'—and the farmhouse setting. As in other Shepard plays, the homestead that should be a heartland sanctuary instead is a place of terror and secrets.
The pithy 90-minute play is beautifully performed by four veterans directed by Karen Kessler. Stolid Roderick Peeples methodically oils his boots and feeds his stock until he's forced to dance a jig, literally. Natalie West, in Edith Bunker mode, intuitively understands good and evil but can't quite verbalize things. Joseph Wycoff is the play's catalyst, a terrified radioactive man straight from 1950s sci-fi. Finally, imposing Troy West is Welch, the arrogant and intrusive government torturer as super patriot. It's no accident that Welch is the name of the founder of the John Birch Society, the once-powerful, secretive radical right organization.
For all the production's strength—the shocking special effects and the picture-perfect ( if condensed ) farmhouse set by John C. Stark—The God of Hell is not one of Shepard's best. Quickly written ( I would guess ) , thinly plotted and lacking true depth of character, it lacks the profundity of Shepard's most significant work such as Buried Child, The Tooth of Crime, True West and Fool for Love. The God of Hell is effective in the moment—its message is clear, its theatrical methods are amusing and its impact is disturbing—but that doesn't make it a work of dramatic literature that will withstand the test of time.
Next Theatre artistic director Jason Loewith ( who's led Next to an expanded 25th anniversary season ) pointed out that The God of Hell is modeled somewhat after Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr. Sloane. While I understand what he means, the play seems more to echo other darkish comedies such as Larry Shue's The Foreigner and Ionesco's Rhinoceros, not to mention Orwell's 1984. Scholars say there only are a limited number of literary models from which all literature derives, and the same seems to hold true for political models and commentaries upon them.
Victoria DeIorio's incidental music—deconstructions of This Is My Country played on accordion, violin and banjo—is brilliant.