Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class from Abbey Theatre on Vimeo.

 The opening night of Sam Shepard’s Curse of the Starving Class is tomorrow in the Abbey Theatre. We went to see a preview of it last night. A very tough uncompromising play, it depicts a dysfunctional American family struggling to make ends meet on their farm and land. Some of the themes will be very familar to Ireland today, free credit, wealth, greed and a promise of enormous wealth from property speculators.

It is described as a black comedy, it certainly is black.  Joe Hanly puts in a star turn as Weston, the alcoholic father and special mention must go to Rose O’Loughlin who marks her debut with a fine performance as the bolshie daughter Emma.

Note, there is some nudity (which elicited more than a few gasps from the audience) and a live animal on stage.

A strong arresting play which will make you think but not necessarily smile.