The Late Henry Moss

The White Horse Theater Company presents Sam Shepard’s The Late Henry Moss, directed by Cyndy A. Marion. Written in response to his father’s death due to a drunken roadside accident in 1984, Shepard worked on The Late Henry Moss off and on for a period of ten years before completing the final version in 2000. Perhaps his most powerful and autobiographical work to date, the play re-explores well-known Shepard themes– the dark side of the American family, severed relationships, spousal abuse, alcoholism, and loss of identity– while putting the previously peripheral or alluded to character of “The Old Man”, based on his father, center stage.

The Late Henry Moss takes place in familiar Shepard territory- a small run-down shack on the edge of the New Mexican desert. Two brothers re-unite at the deathbed of their destitute father in an effort to solve the mystery of his sudden demise. What ensues is a fierce filial battle where control of the present requires a painful visit to the past.