Beth has been viciously beaten by her husband Jake. Sam Shepard’s play presents the consequences for both characters.
First produced off-Broadway forty years ago, A Lie of the Mind can appear both curiously historical and searingly relevant.
Contemporary society is hyper-aware of domestic violence, and this makes it natural for us to expect from Shepard’s play something we might term social justice realism. But a condemnation of the crime of DV is only part of what this play offers.
Firstly, there’s the poetry born of Shepard’s masterly use of the vernacular; specks of gold dust that suddenly sparkle from out of the common dirt of Truth. It’s the poetry of Love, and its terrible alternatives.
The script also brims with satire aimed at the stupid and the obtuse (those Hillary Clinton called the deplorables – possibly accurately, probably unwisely.) Jake’s father is hyperbolically self-centred, an egoistic centring only possible because he has a chip on each shoulder. Beth and Jake’s mothers both claim not to remember their children’s marriage; it’s a dull-wittedness that’s so extreme it leaves you wondering if it’s deliberate. In this context, Beth’s brain injury comes to appear almost as a literalisation of the desperate psychological survival strategy adopted by the American married woman.
I use the adjective American advisedly, because A Lie of the Mind could be read as a state-of-the-nation play, rather than solely a domestic drama. The last time Jake saw his father, in Mexico, they were disgustingly drunk and racing each other to get back to the States. And this father wasn’t just any American, he was a decorated serviceman, and after his death his ashes were delivered to the family with a flag – a prop which then features prominently in the events of the present.
So, if it is a state-of-the-nation play, what’s it say about America?
Building on my earlier observations about violence and obtuseness, the play could be read as presenting a nation of barely concealed brutality, exacerbated by a barely conscious duplicity. If there’s an American meanness, it’s not going to be acknowledged – and it’s this refusal that is a lie of the mind.
Director Johann Walraven elicits some good performances (though the homogeneity of age of the cast results in some roles being more challenging than others.) Lily MacNevin as Beth hits the poetic moments beautifully. Finn Couzner as Jake is suitably dangerous, and Amos Walker as his brother suitably frightened. Felicity Cribb as their sister finds a real truthfulness, and her genuine bewilderment contrasts wonderfully with the glib certainty of her mother, played with humour by Indiana Jamie.
Paul Gilchrist
A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard
produced by Light the Torch Productions in association with New Theatre
at New Theatre until Jan 24
Image by Josh Merten
Theatre Red 