Don’t worry guys this is Shepard- we dig here we’ll find a devil.
Me to my Actors- 2013
Sam Shepard frightened me. Then he infuriated me. I was angry to the point of irrationality. Seven Plays by Sam Shepard opened at The Tooth of the Crime, an experimental early work of the master playwright. I was confused. I couldn’t piece together the narrative or maybe I could and it was just that simple. By this time I had read and seen True West. I had read Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, and A Lie of the Mind. I had loved them but here… I was close to tears, and visibly shaking the paper back anthology of his work and did not know why. I still don’t. I don’t quite understand what about that mess of words, music, characters and Mad Max themes got to me but I still occasionally pick it up.
And despite being a short two acts I can never finish it on a single reading.
I never really knew of Mr. Shepard as a personality. Or studied his history. I was embarrassingly old before realizing that this playwright I had read for years was in one of my childhood movies Purgatory which for the record is not his or anyone’s best work.
But whenever I battled his plays and left them battered I did feel like a transfusion had been made. A glimpse into another person’s soul, a rare enough event I think to warrant thanks. If that had been my only real experience with Mr. Shepard it would have been enough to leave me in his debt.
But Mr. Shepard’s play Seduced was a vital part of my theatrical journey. That process taught me how to be a better director and artist. That time challenged me to tap into the same furies I felt in his work. Seduced isn’t particularly well known, done so infrequently a google search earlier today revealed my production (2013) as the second option. It is also not a particularly beloved play, a random reviewer on Goodreads summarized my initial thoughts very well…
While any actor would be very lucky to get to play Henry, no one else in this play has anything to do. Nothing is happening in this play. Shepard is just trying to show off — spinning philosophical webs without making any actual commentary. The play is nothing but hot air, not unlike its protagonist. It’s also sexist, way too long (with only enough material or ideas to support a one act at BEST), and just sort redundant. I think it’s also trying to confuse the audience so the audience will think the play is a lot deeper and smarter than it actually is.
I admit the entire reason I chose the script initially was that it was A). Shepard and B) a four person even gendered split work. I knew it could be done with a simple set and I had… faith. I felt that Mr. Shepard’s work must still contain that soul of fire I’d faced so often. The actors were equally concerned to the point where I had to convince one to stay involved. That if we dug we’d find something worth doing.
We did. We found hypocrisy behind the platitudes and uncovered deep bonds between women that existed despite catty sexist dialog. We learned to make the hard choices. This work profoundly illustrated to me the difference between script and play. On the frayed printer paper and fading ink a story hardly worth the telling was laid out. But as the symbols transformed: The stage directions hardened into set pieces and two dimensional stereotypes birthed into living bleeding characters those obvious conclusions became impossible. Instead each actor found hidden challenges, duels, alternative paths, and a painful resolution that hurt me almost as much as my ignorance during The Tooth of the Crime. Is it possible that my talented cast and crew invented this power and Seduced was as devoid of merit as we originally feared?
Possible… if the same hand hadn’t written Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, God of Hell….
It is tempting to assume that you have total understanding. That you can predict the why and how early in the process. That a play should be discarded because it fits so precisely into outdated beliefs or a predicable plot. That there is nothing to be learned or felt. This was my belief and my hubris and Mr. Shepard broke me of it.
I have a test for greatness in my playwrights. It is my own bastardization of the Eugene O Neil quote. Good playwrights channel humanity. Great ones channel God.
And Sam Shepard challenged both.
Till next time,
Lane McLeod Jackson
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