Curse of the Starving Class

The play was initially produced in London at the Royal Court Theatre on April 21, 1977, directed by Nancy Meckler.^[3] The play was commissioned by Joseph Papp.^[4]


Curse of the Starving Class was premiered Off-Broadway at the New York Shakespeare Festival, on March 2, 1978, presented by Papp. It closed on April 9, 1978.^[5] The cast was as follows:


The play was revived Off-Broadway at the Promenade Theatre from July 30, 1985, to February 16, 1986. Directed by Robin Lynn Smith, the cast featured Kathy Bates (Ella) and Bradley Whitford (Wesley).^[6]


The play was produced at Yale Repertory Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut, in February 2000, directed by Jim Simpson and featuring Kristine Nielsen, Guy Boyd, Mandy Siegfried, Danny Seckel, Paul Boocock, Ron Faber, Steve Mellor, Dan Moran and Chime Serra. The production had original live rock, blues, jazz, punk, and Latin-style music, composed and arranged by Steve Bargonetti and Diane Gioia.^[7]


Curse of the Starving Class won the 1976–77 Obie Award for Best New American Play.^[8]

Character summaries[edit]

The Tate family is a lower middle class, rural California family, trying to hold on to the last shreds of a family bond and traditional living.


Wesley Tate is the son of the family. Feeling strong ties to his family and to the land, Wesley maintains the farm after the others have given up. The prospect of selling the land to real estate developers has a significance far greater than the loss of a mere house, but his family. 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.


Ella Tate is the mother of the family. As the play opens, she and Wesley are both looking through the chunks of the broken door that her husband, Weston, broke in a fit of rage. Ella is a highly dysfunctional individual with no capacity to cope with her husband's alcoholism. She often changes topics when she feels it in her best interest and tries to ignore the things going on immediately around her. Ella decides to take matters into her own hands and puts the house up for sale without consulting her husband.


Emma Tate is the daughter of Ella and Weston Tate. She has just started her first period, and has several mood swings during the play. Emma hates living with her family and repeatedly announces plans to leave home. She first tries to run away by taking the family horse, but it throws her off and drags her through the mud, so she comes back. 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. Once she is arrested she says that she gains her freedom by offering sexual bribes to the sheriff. She then decides to steal her mother's car and take up a life of crime, claiming that it is the only way to make a real living in this world. In her attempt to steal the car, she is blown up with the car by the bomb that Slater puts in it.


Ellis is the owner of a bar, the Alibi Club, where Weston spends his time when he is not at home. Ellis is a greedy charlatan who tries to cheat the family out of their house. 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.


Emerson is a minor character who represents the men that Weston is in debt to. He and Slater, another minor character, only appear at the end of the production when they blow up Weston's car for compensation. He is a wicked man, a villain in the story.


Weston Tate is the father of the family and an abusive alcoholic. Incapable of driving or holding a job, he is a profoundly unstable man controlled by the alcohol that runs in his system. His violent nature and utter lack of accountability are the crux of many of the family's issues. He is easily taken advantage of and when his debts are not paid, it takes an even more terrifying toll on the people close to him.


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. He is uninterested in the other crimes that Wesley and Ella accuse Taylor and Ellis of, stating that he is only there to tell Ella about Emma.


Taylor is a lawyer who is involved in real estate and is looking to buy the property from Ella. He is the representative for several large corporations that are looking to buy up land. He is also the same man who swindled Weston into buying the useless desert property.


Slater is Emerson's accomplice. He is the one who actually put the bomb in the car that kills Emma. He and Emerson represent the men that Weston owes money to, and have come to serve as a warning. Slater also brings the dead lamb's carcass into the house.