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A LIE OF THE MIND Send This Review to a Friend
Talk about dysfunctional families. Sam Shepard has served up what could be the ultimate in dysfunction, on evidence in The New Group’s revival of Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind,” as vividly directed by Ethan Hawke. As usual, one is tempted to look for meaning in a Shepard work, and since wrapping an American flag takes place, there is an inference that the dysfunction applies to America, as well as to the motley gang of characters the author has created.
When the play first surfaced in 1985 –it’s hard to believe that was 25 years ago—the running time was four hours. This version has been cut down to below three hours, but it still seems an awfully long time to spend with these mostly unappealing characters struggling through their messed-up lives. However, the acting is so good that one does become involved, even when appalled at some of what goes on in Shepard’s scheme of things.
Marin Ireland is especially good as the hapless Beth, who has been severely beaten by her volatile, at times paranoid husband Jake (Alessandro Nivola). As a result, she is an emotionally and physically crippled mess. Beth finds refuge in the Montana home of her parents, the venerable Keith Carradine playing her father, Baylor, and the superb actress Laurie Metcalf portraying her mother Meg. Frank Whaley plays Beth's angry brother Mike. That’s one family home, set on one side of the stage in Derek McLane’s set design that must encompass all of the divided-location action. The overall set is populated by the greatest assembly of bric-a-brac and furnishings one can imagine that covers the entire back wall and is probably meant to suggest the greater clutter that goes on in the minds and lives of the characters.
Meanwhile, Jake is ensconced in the California home of his mother, Lorraine, and he declares that he doesn’t want to go into the outside world anymore. Karen Young, long a favorite actress of mine, plays Lorraine, a widow, and brings a no-nonsense, impatient earthiness to the role. Maggie Siff is Sally, Jake’s sister, whom I find the most sympathetic character in the play. She is at sea in trying to deal with Jake and shows her exasperation. Josh Hamilton plays their brother Frankie.
There you have the eight characters in Shepard’s stew, and in the nearly three hours we get a portrait of what their lives are like, of events that have occurred and others that we see, some devastating, some merely oddball. As the action shifts from one side of the stage to the other, there are moments that are funny, as if we were watching monkeys in a zoo and laughing at their antics. But there are other moments in which we can observe with horror the truth of these screwed up lives. Through it all we can find a unity of viewpoint in observing these households that reflect Shepard’s hard-boiled, yet poetic vision. At the Acorn Theatre, Theatre Row, 410 West 42nd Street. Phone: 212-279-4200.
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