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?