RALPH WAITE NO LONGER BAFFLED BY SCR’S ‘CHILD’

When Ralph Waite accepted a role in South Coast Repertory Theatre’s production of “Buried Child,” he was “completely baffled” by the drama. But after nearly 40 performances of this Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a Corn Belt family ruined by its past, Waite now knows what playwright Sam Shepard is getting at.

The SCR production, which runs through Sunday, features the 57-year-old actor as Dodge, the surly, drunken patriarch who carries the secret that is destroying the clan.

“I am not at all ashamed to admit I was very perplexed; it’s an odd play with an odd structure,” the affable Waite said during an interview following a recent matinee. “Shepard doesn’t really tell the audience or the actors what’s going on, and you have to make some assumptions. That put me out to sea, and for a long time the play didn’t make any sense and the role (of Dodge) didn’t make any sense.”

He said the breakthrough came when he decided to trust Shepard’s personal vision and immerse himself in the authentic language of the play. “Now after 40 performances, it has begun to feel like a coherent vision for me. To be honest, at first I thought it was a ludicrous and gimmicky play, but now I feel it is a valuable statement.”

Shepard’s play takes a harrowing look at incest, infanticide and guilt. But underneath all that, says Waite, who probably is best-known as the sympathetic country father on the television series “The Waltons,” is a longing for roots and the sense of self that can come only from family heritage.

“The more I play it, the more powerful this thing about the past is,” he said. “There’s that weird and sometimes incongruous need to have a family past, and Shepard talks about the terror of not having that past. You begin to see that American society is, in many ways, rootless and yearning to have roots.

“As an actor, I’ve been fairly rootless for several years. Those feelings (of separation) were tapped in the play.”

Waite also used his own experience as a “recovering alcoholic” to connect with Dodge, whose drinking is one of the drama’s pivotal sources of black humor.

Although Waite said he stopped drinking more than 10 years ago, the helplessness and anger he recalled from his own alcoholism helped him understand the character’s personality.

“I could grasp his irascibility because of that,” he said. “In the beginning, that was one of the few things I could identify with. I brought a lot of my own frustrations (from drinking) into the part, and it grew from there.”

Waite had been away from Hollywood for two years when he was offered his role in “Buried Child.” He moved to Palm Springs with his wife and stepson in 1984 after his CBS series “The Mississippi” was canceled.

Since then, he’s been writing plays, participating in an alcoholics’ recovery program and dabbling in local politics. In fact, Waite said, he almost ran for office as a “liberal Democrat” in the 37th Congressional District, which includes Palm Springs and parts of Riverside. His interest flagged, however, when he concluded that “I wouldn’t make much of a campaigner.”

Not long after that, he began scouting for an ideal project that would lure him back into acting.

“I wanted to get back into it slowly; I wanted something that wouldn’t draw the big Hollywood crowds and would give me a chance to have some fun,” he explained.

Waite readily accepted when SCR offered the Dodge role, even though he had limited knowledge of Shepard’s work (he has seen only one other Shepard play, “Fool for Love,” he said). He was unfamiliar with the theater company and, since SCR is about 50 miles from the Los Angeles scene, assumed its appeal to drama fans was limited.

“I was very surprised at how popular it (SCR) is. The place was sold out just about every night, and all the critics showed up,” he said. “I guess I should have checked out its reputation a little better.”

His “Buried Child” experience has helped dilute the one-dimensional image that lingers from his 10 years on “The Waltons,” Waite said.

While grateful for the “small celebrity” he gained from the popular series, Waite said he has always been eager to move beyond the identity of his John Walton character.

“There certainly isn’t much of the Waltons in ‘Buried Child,’ ” Waite said, grinning. “If the Waltons were the bright side of family life, this play shows the dark underbelly.”

After the play closes Sunday, Waite will consider his acting options. Another television series would interest him, but he said no attractive offers have been made. He’ll probably continue in the theater for a while, possibly on Broadway, he said.