Sam Shepard

[lobelia321]

I was re-reading some of the chapters in the wonderful book 'Writers on Writing' which I was given for Christmas, and noticed that a lot of the featured writers had been or were actors or writing for theatre or recommended reading plays for dramatic structure.

So I rummaged through our fantastically unorganised book shelves and discovered: Sam Shepard! So far I've read 3 plays, including a wonderful experimental one called 'Savage/Love'.

From Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin's collaborative piece 'Savage/Love' (gorgeous and powerful love stuff):




First Moment
The first moment
I saw you in the Post Office
You saw me
And I didn't know.

The first moment
I saw you
I knew I could love you
If you could love me

You had sort of a flavor
The way you looked
And you looked at me
And I didn't know if you saw me
And there wasn't a question to ask

I was standing with some papers
I started shuffling the papers
But I didn't know what order to put them in

But I figured I wanted to do it in such a way
That it looked like I had some purpose

But I really just wanted to look at your eyes all the time

And you said
Look at me with your eyes
Look at me with your eyes

In that first moment
Your face burned into my dream
And right away I had this feeling
Maybe you're lost
Until now

Maybe I'm lost
Until now

And I thought
Maybe I'm just making this up

But your eyes
Looked like they were saying
Look at me more

I would shuffle the papers
Look at you
My breathing changed

Then I felt something dissolve
I felt there might be a danger
That anything could happen in the next moment
Maybe you would turn away from me

Or you could say
Let's go together
Forever




Absence

You who are not here
You who are missing in my body
Holes in my body
Places like holes
Like bullets made
Patches of agony
Swimming
From my feet
To my hands

You who are gone
Missing from the place you lived in me
Instead of blood
Hollow veins
The groin is locked
You
The missing part of me
You
That disappeared



And today I went out to the library (not t'reference library but t'borrowing library) and got out two volumes of Caryl Churchill, two plays by someone called Mark Ravenhill (I was sucked in by the title 'Shopping and Fucking') and a volume of Chekhov.

I never used to like reading plays very much, I thought I needed to see them to flesh them out, but now I'm finding that I love them!

I'm sure it's to do with writing. I read them and imagine the fleshing-out bit and try and figure out how the playwrights manage to say everything in dialogue. (Thank you yet again, ELF, for alerting me to t'power of t'spoken word.)

Hey, any play recs?

Comments

[gabbyhope.livejournal.com]

PLAYS!

ohgod, where to start...

'Lie of the Mind' is my absolute favorite. Sam Shepard. Cannot describe... just. Man. 'Buried Child', as well. If you haven't read them. Do eeet.

As for plays that are not that well known, but fantastic reads, 'Shakespeare's R & J' (deconstruction of romeo and juliet) by Joe Calarco is fun and utterly beautiful... not to mention the fact that it's four school boys playing all of the characters, and there is much kissing and sweetness. 'The Dresser' is amazing... the movie is also splendid. 'The House of Blue Leaves' is fantastic. I believe there's also a movie for that, hm. 'I Hate Hamlet' is hilarious, absolutely very much fun. 'Proof' won the Pulitzer Prize. 'Old Wicked Songs' was nominated. These are both *spectacular*... as is 'Tongue of a Bird,' which makes me cry everytime I read it. *swoon*

And I could go on. But. Yes. Plays. *clutches at her chest*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you!! Is all that lot in the second para by Joe Calarco??

Re:

[gabbyhope.livejournal.com]

Oh, heh, no. I got a little carried away, forgot you need authors. Lemme go through them for you.

'The Dresser' - Ronald Harwood
'The House of Blue Leaves' - John Guare
'Tongue of a Bird' - Ellen McLaughlin
'I Hate Hamlet' - Paul Rudnick
'Old Wicked Songs' - Jon Marans
'Proof' - David Auburn

I'm sure I'll be thinking of more all day, too... heh. You've sparked my dead interest.

[ex-verdandi713.livejournal.com]

Also from Sam Shepard--"The Unseen Hand," "Operation Sidewinder" and "The Tooth of Crime" (the last two being his versions of rock operas). Rochelle Owens--"Futz" and "Who Do You Want, Pierre Vidal?" Suzan-Lori Parks--everything, especially "Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom." Carol Churchill--everything, especially "Top Girls," Vinegar Tom" and "Cloud 9." Joe Orton--everything, especially "What the Butler Saw." Maria Irene Fornes--"Fefu and Her Friends." Paula Vogel--"And Baby Makes Seven," "Baltimore Waltz" and "How I Learned to Drive." Tony Kushner--"Angels in America." Eugene O'Neill--everything. Tennessee Williams--everything, but "The Glass Menagerie" is the one that always makes me cry. And for an interesting look at how an experimental theater operates, David Savran's book The Wooster Group: Breaking the Rules.

Er, sorry. You just made me flash back to that Twentieth-Century American Drama class of years past. :-)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Ooh, thank you! A whole bouquet of plays!

[badgermonkey.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I know a play you would like: Arcadia by Tom Stoppard. In my brief incarnation as a Theatre Studies A-level stude, we also read "Our Country's Good" by Timberlake Wertenbaker and a nice little one called "My Mother Said..." but I can't remember who it's written by.

Loads of Brecht too, if you want your anti-war stuff clunkily symbolic but well meaning ("Mother Courage", anyone?) and of course the classics, Godot etc.

What Chekov have you got? I've just spotted an unread volume of Cherry Orchard/Uncle Vanya and others that I should get round to.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The Chekhov is downstairs but am too bored to get it. It's got Cherry Orchard, Seagulls, Vanya and two others in it. I'm not so fond of Brecht; too hammering away at the polemic, but Chalk Circle has its moments, and I like his poems. And Wertenbaker: I saw some on the shelf at t'library but was put off by the name! *g*

Thank you, thank you for all these recs. My, the bounty. But plays are fast too read. I may even get through them all.

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Christopher Fry (The Lady's Not for Burning, Venus Observed etc) and Tom Stoppard. And I definitely agree with whoever said that plays are good for dramatic structure: it seems much easier to see what is happening, and why, at each stage of the action when that action is divided into acts and scenes. Did you ever have to draw those diagrams of the structure of Shakespeare plays -introduction, development, catalyst and so on?

Of course, I can witter on about this stuff for hours without being able to apply it to the simplest of my own stories ... <g>

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

oh, thank you for recs! I am inundated! I'm finding the plays useful for dialogue, also. It is a really good way to see how people structure the bare bones of direct speech and make the dynamic arise from that. But also how the bare bones interact with symbolic stage stuff. And how you can be daring with language.

And no, I was never made to analyse plays in that way you describe. It was more about politics in Macbeth and so forth.