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The Worst of All Possible Worlds
The Worst of All Possible Worlds

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133 - Sam Shepard’s Buried Child (feat. Yurié Collins)

Yurié Collins (@babypinkhaus) and the lads grab their shovels and go digging for babies as they cover Sam Shepard’s 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winning fever dream of a play: Buried Child. Topics include the toxic masculinity of the cowboy persona, the plays’ morbidly rich imagery, and the terrors of any generation, past or present, facing the dead baby buried in the backyard.

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Yurié Collins: Tiktok // Instagram

Media Referenced in this Episode:

TWOAPW theme by Brendan Dalton: Patreon // brendan-dalton.com // brendandalton.bandcamp.com

Commercial: “The Autograph Theatre’s Pearl Fartbor Season Announcement” feat. David Armstrong as “Jim/Tom/Mark/John/Ray” and Yurié Collins as “Pearl Fartbor”

133 - Sam Shepard’s Buried Child (feat. Yurié Collins)
133 - Sam Shepard’s Buried Child (feat. Yurié Collins)

Comments

I decided to wait to listen to this episode until I had the time and brain space to watch the play first. I then immediately listened to the episode. My brain might be overloaded right now and maybe it was a weird way to spend an evening, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I should probably read some of the other more famous plays that you were saying it reminds you of. “Febreze family“ could be its own play. There’s a play with that concept. Also, I burst out laughing alone in my apartment at the part in the interstitial where it says “ stare directly into the asshole of God” Thanks as always for the theatrical entertainment.

Elizabeth Power

The rain sounds like the rainstorm video on the Calm YouTube channel I often use to fall asleep to.

Dergon

I am not a theater person- not by choice. I just live somewhere not great for theater. I rather enjoy these episodes that center on theater from people with a passion for it, people who also talk about it with an infectious joy and without the- ah, sometimes elitist attitude, some share. It also made me realize I'd love to hear y'all talk about The Power of the Dog. While this is I am sure not a startling insight, here are my thoughts on this play and what it is: I can't help but wonder if it's a purgatory of the mind. I've had a family member slide into dementia, and given them in home care from the onset unto death. There is a kind of- loss, a sense of time and space, past and present. You slip in and out of reality and memory. Flashes of the present in a sea of the past. Given the way people are, how they act, the surreal unreality of it all and the way the strongest feelings and memories remain- it feels like that. The ending also kind of feels like a metaphor for Reconstruction and America's failure to see it through.

Noblesse Oblahaj

My first intro to Sam Shephard was the TNT original movie "Purgatory" that my dad bought on VHS, and that was about it, so you can imagine my shock when I googled "Sam Shephard playwright"

Violent J and Shaggy2Dope 2024

But who directed the other actors?

The Worst of all Possible Worlds

I would like to state for the record that i directed The Goat in college

Ben Ferber

"He hates women, but not even in an interesting way," is an absolutely hilarious take down and oh fuck we've all met that guy

Noblesse Oblahaj

"Debra, where did you bury the child? Raymond, do you know where Debra buried the child?"

Jordan Y Clementi

I genuinely think you could squeeze 120 minutes out of Too Many Cooks in the future As someone who married a stage manager (in another life, thank god) I really love your theater episodes. It grants me so much insight into something I was always adjacent to but never in.

Jordan Y Clementi

"Maybe it's the sun/son" -- punning on "sun" just like the end of "Ghosts," right?

murt pie

Wait… Ray Romano was playing all the ghosts?

James Cézanne-Taipale

Yeah, it really depends on the playwright and the publisher. Some playwrights have a lot of detail, and sometimes it all opens with just: "morning. A tree." In addition, plays from the late 19th/early 20th centuries were often published from Stage Manager's notes, with exhaustive set/blocking directions, complete prop lists and often even blueprints of the Broadway set design. This was usually done as as an aid to amateur theaters producing the work. Contemporary playwrights are much prone to minimalism, and the understanding with many directors is that they will skip/cross out all the stage directions and work purely from dialogue. With the exception of Samuel Beckett's estate, stage directions are almost never required to be followed.

The Worst of all Possible Worlds

I took some acting classes in college before I realized there was no way I could hack it as a professional and got paired to do a scene from True West opposite a guy in his sixth year of undergrad who just COULD. NOT. LEARN. LINES. (if you're reading this I am sorry I blew up your amp) anyway when we performed the teacher asked if I had ever been drunk before, which I truthfully hadn't, and he said he didn't believe me and I live with that moment every day wondering if he was making fun of me

Ezra Knickelbine

I'm partial to my role in Bone Tomahawk myself

Fatt Mox

We thought you were excellent in Speed Racer.

The Worst of all Possible Worlds

Very jarring to hear my full Christian name in this episode, especially in the context of a play about a brother and sister doing it

Fatt Mox

In modern theatre news the lads should find a little heartwarming*, Ivo van Hove’s new play is closing months early because people have been bailing on mass at intermission. Also yes there is a ghost. *a little, sucks for the cast and theatre staff obviously, they deserved a better production.

Amy Godliman

My world is (or used to be) musical theatre, opera specifically and I find it so strange, how specific the instructions are - how the stage is supposed to look like or which props to use etc. Maybe that's normal in theatre, but to me it feels kind of intrusive. The fun of staging an opera comes from the freedom to make these decisions for yourself instead of having the playwright/librettist breathing down your neck.

Wilko

Cannot wait for your 13 Reasons takes! My burning burning hatred for it in all its forms leads people to say things like “chill out it’s just a show” and I feel that at least one of you will instead validate my intensity on the topic. (Also I suggest the book if you want to feel a wider range of despair and anger at media tbh.)

Heather

I know the name of the theater that you will not name. I don't know which episode it was but it is said once. What a messed up place.

Chris Smith

I'm a little sleep deprived, watching my son on the BB monitor, the surreality of this play got me feeling a little loopy. Great readings! AJ you def got into grad school with that one!

im so daddy i havent slept in a year

for twink use only needs to be a t-shirt

Benalish Transexual

I was so prepared for Yurié’s anecdote about the Irish actor to end with a “and that man was…” only for it to just be “…an alcoholic”.

Amy Godliman

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is so much better than this play. It was acted impeccably, but it just made me long for Albee.

Marty Shambles

“For Twink Use Only” needs to be a sticker

Nate Netzley

So my dad was an aerospace engineer and is also a Sam Shepard fan, so you would think it would be for the Right Stuff, but he's actually an avid reader of his plays because he read Shepard in Honors English and got hooked. really bucking the trend

Mason Shrader


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