Kicking a Dead Horse Read online

  SAM SHEPARD

  Kicking a Dead Horse

  Sam Shepard is the Pulitzer Prize—winning author of more than forty-five plays. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven, and he has also written the story collection Cruising Paradise, two collections of prose pieces, Motel Chronicles and Hawk Moon, and Rolling Thunder Logbook, a diary of Bob Dylan’s 1975 Rolling Thunder Review tour. As an actor he has appeared in more than thirty films, including Days of Heaven, Crimes of the Heart, Steel Magnolias, The Pelican Brief, Snow Falling on Cedars, All the Pretty Horses, Black Hawk Down, and The Notebook. He received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for his performance in The Right Stuff. His screenplay for Paris, Texas won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, and he wrote and directed the film Far North in 1988 and cowrote and starred in Wim Wenders’s Don’t Come Knocking in 2005. Shepard’s plays, eleven of which have won Obie Awards, include The God of Hell, Buried Child, The Late Henry Moss, Simpatico, Curse of the Starving Class, True West, Fool for Love, and A Lie of the Mind, which won a New York Drama Desk Award. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Shepard received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy in 1992, and in 1994 he was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame. He lives in New York.

  ALSO BY SAM SHEPARD

  Buried Child

  Tooth of Crime (Second Dance)

  The God of Hell

  Great Dream of Heaven

  The Late Henry Moss, Eyes for Consuela,

  When the World Was Green

  Cruising Paradise

  Simpatico

  States of Shock, Far North, Silent Tongue

  A Lie of the Mind

  The Unseen Hand and Other Plays

  Fool for Love and Other Plays

  Paris, Texas

  Seven Plays

  Motel Chronicles

  Rolling Thunder Logbook

  Hawk Moon

  A VINTAGE BOOKS ORIGINAL, JUNE 2008

  Copyright © 2007 by Sam Shepard

  Foreword copyright © 2008 by Stephen Rea

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by

  Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published

  in slightly different form in the United Kingdom by

  Faber and Faber Limited, London, in 2007.

  CAUTION: This play is fully protected, in whole, in part, or in any

  form, under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the

  British Empire including the Dominion of Canada, and all other

  countries of the copyright union, and is subject to royalty. All rights,

  including professional, amateur, motion picture, radio, television,

  recitation, and public reading, are strictly reserved. All inquiries for

  performance rights should be addressed to the author’s agent,

  Judy Boals, Judy Boals, Inc., 208 West 30th Street, Suite 401,

  New York, NY 10001.

  Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of

  Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Shepard, Sam, 1943–

  Kicking a dead horse : a play / by Sam Shepard;

  foreword by Stephen Rea.

  p. cm.

  “A Vintage original”—T.p. verso.

  eISBN: 978-0-307-79373-7

  1. Art dealers—Fiction. 2. West (U.S.)—Drama. I. Title.

  PS3569.H394K53 2008

  812′.54—dc22

  2008001503

  www.vintagebooks.com

  v3.1

  For Stephen Rea

  Special thanks to Peter Stampfel

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Characters

  Kicking a Dead Horse

  Foreword

  Three writers dominate late-twentieth-century drama: an Irishman, an Englishman, and an American—Beckett, Pinter, and Shepard.

  All three are engaged in a theater that is beyond the mere traffic with, in Yeats’s phrase, “the sensation of an external reality.”

  Beckett’s method in drama depends on a sense of formal limits, so that his use of theater has been an investigation of its nature.

  “When an essay in a genre is a critique of that genre and meaning expresses itself against boundaries, bridges are burnt behind the writing as it advances.”*

  The method opens onto a disturbing freedom and has been hugely influential. Pinter and Shepard acknowledge freely this influence on their work, and no writers have seized upon Beckett’s legacy with such willingness. What Pinter found in Beckett was a writer “inhabiting his innermost self,” and what impressed him was “something about the quick of the world”* —a writer creating his own unique yet universally recognizable world.

  Sam Shepard felt that in the 1960s Beckett made American theater “look like it was on crutches” and that “he had revolutionized theater, turning it upside down, and making it possible to write about anything.”

  What Pinter and Shepard have done is to claim the Beckettian existential space and re-create it in rooms, ranches, prairies, badlands. (What is Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter but Godot in a basement?) The characters of Pinter’s Landscape and Ashes to Ashes, and Shepard’s Fool for Love and A Lie of the Mind, like Hamm and Clov in Endgame, are doomed for eternity to petrified noncommunication.

  It’s a wholly nontheoretical theater. Pinter insists that he doesn’t conceptualize in any way. Shepard denies starting from any kind of abstract idea or theory. Beckett said, “My work is a matter of fundamental sounds—Hamm as stated, Clov as stated—that’s all I can manage” and “Godot began with an image of a tree and an empty stage and proceeded from there. I only know what’s on the page.”*

  Kicking a Dead Horse begins with a description of, yes, a dead horse, stipulating that there should be “no attempt to stylize or cartoon it in any way. In fact, it should actually be a dead horse.” The play begins with a concrete dramatic image and proceeds from there.

  By now it’s a cliché to assert that writing aspires to the condition of music. But …

  Beckett: “Music is the highest art form—it’s never condemned to explicitness.”†

  And to an actor (me) in rehearsal: “Don’t think about meaning, think about rhythm.”

  The plays of Sam Shepard, more than any writer since Beckett, feel like musical experiences. They transcend meaning, avoid the literary and conceptual, and search for a concrete immediate reality, beyond the idea, which the actor and audience are forced to experience directly.

  And here’s the leap.

  In Kicking a Dead Horse, we watch with some shock as Shepard dismantles the imagery that distinguishes the previous body of his work. As Hobart Struther realizes the futility of his quest for AUTHENTICITY and divests himself of the mythology that has sustained him hitherto, we experience the urgency of the wider American crisis: the collapse of a sense of history and maybe of America itself.

  Beckett said of Joyce, “His writing is not about something. It is something.”*

  That, of course, is Sam Shepard’s achievement.

  —Stephen Rea

  *J.C.C. Mays, Field Day Anthology.

  *Michael Billington, The Life and Work of Harold Pinter, (London: Faber & Faber, 2007).

  *Laurence Shainberg, “Exorcising Beckett,” from Playwrights at Work: The Paris Review, ed. George Plimpton, (New York: Modern Library, 2000).

  �
��Shainberg, “Exorcising Beckett.”

  *Shainberg, “Exorcising Beckett.”

  Kicking a Dead Horse premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, Ireland, September 13, 2007.

  HOBART STRUTHER: Stephen Rea

  YOUNG WOMAN: Joanne Crawford

  Directed by Sam Shepard

  Set design by Brien Vahey

  Lighting design by John Comiskey

  Costume design by Joan Bergin

  Voice direction by Andrea Ainsworth

  Dialect coaching by Brendan Gunn

  Assistant directed by Wayne Jordan

  Company stage management by Brendan McLoughlin

  Deputy stage management by Elizabeth Gerhardy

  Assistant stage management by Róisin Coyle

  Hair and make-up by Patsy Giles

  Photography by Ros Kavanagh

  Graphic design by Red Dog

  HORSE MAKERS:

  Sculptors Padraig McGoran,

  John O’Connor

  Mechanism Shadow Creations

  Assistants Tony Doody, Rory Doyle

  Model maker Mike McDuff

  Characters

  HOBART STRUTHER

  mid-sixties

  YOUNG WOMAN

  All stage positions (up left, up right, down center, etc.)

  are from the actor’s point of view, facing audience.

  Scene: as the audience enters, the stage is entirely covered with a sky-blue silk sheet concealing irregular mounds. No special lighting and no music or sound effects of any kind. A blank white muslin scrim covers the entire upstage wall in a wide sweeping arc, floor to ceiling. No special light in scrim other than work lights.

  Once the audience settles, piano music begins: Dr. John’s “Just a Closer Walk with Thee,” track 7 from the CD, Dr. John Plays Mac Rebennack. After first short piano phrase, lights begin slowly to dim to black. This fade takes up the next long verse of the song entirely. Once the verse is completed and lights have gone down to black, the scrim begins slowly to fill with a pale straw light reminiscent of wide-open prairie at midday. As the second verse unfolds and the lights are slowly rising, the sky-blue silk sheet begins to be drawn back very slowly toward the upstage wall, revealing a dark pit downstage center with mounds of fresh earth on either side of it. Directly upstage center of the pit, on a slight rise, is a dead horse laid out on its side, spine toward audience, neck and head sprawled out to stage right, tail to stage left, all four legs stiffly toward upstage. There is no blood or sign of external injury. The dead horse should be as realistic as possible with no attempt to stylize or cartoon it in any way. In fact, it should actually be a dead horse.

  Music fades out. Light is now full in scrim and stage, giving the effect of distant endless horizon in flatlands. Silence, then, from deep in the pit, the sound of a shovel piercing earth followed by the guttural exhalation of a man working hard. A spadeful of dirt flies out of the hole and lands on the mound to stage right. Slight pause, then this whole sequence repeats. Slight pause and the sequence repeats twice more, the spadefuls of earth landing on the stage-left mound. Slowly, a man emerges from the hole, appearing to the stage-right edge carrying a small camp shovel and breathing heavily. He tosses the shovel on the stage-right mound and climbs completely out of the hole. He stands there, breathing heavily, facing stage right, then bends over, exhausted, placing his hands on his knees.

  This is Hobart Struther: mid-sixties, rumpled white shirt, no tie, sleeves rolled up, no hat, baggy dark slacks, plain boots for riding but not cowboy boots, dark vest. There should be no attempt in his costume to make him look like a “cowboy.” In fact, he should look more like an urban businessman who has suddenly decided to rough it. Blotches of dirt and sweat cover him from head to foot. He has been digging all day. He straightens up, still trying to catch his breath, and turns back toward the hole. He stares down into the pit, then looks upstage at the horse, then directly at the audience, then back to the horse again. Each of these “looks” should be very distinct and deliberate, in the mode of the classic circus clown. He looks back at the audience.

  HOBART: Fucking horse. Goddamn.

  He moves downstage right, where a jumbled pile of equipment has been tossed: western saddle, horse blanket, chaps, spurs, bridle, canteen, small duffel bag full of canned beans, jerky, pots and pans, small canvas tent in the old style, bedroll, rope, saddlebags, and brand-new cream-colored western hat. All of these objects should be totally functional and plain. He starts rummaging through all the gear, searching for a pair of large black binoculars in a case, talking to himself the whole time.

  (Searching through gear.) Of all the damn things—all the things you can think of—preparations—endless lists. All the little details, right down to the can opener and the hunk of dental floss you throw in just for the heck of it. All the forever thinking about it night and day—weighing the pros and cons—last thing in the world that occurs to you is that the fucking horse is going to up and die on you! Just take a shit and roll over like a sack of bones.

  Looks at audience, motions to horse.

  Look at that! Dead! Deader than dirt. There he is—deader than dirt.

  He finds the binoculars in the saddlebag, takes them out of their case as he crosses to the stage-right pile of dirt and climbs to the top of it. He holds the binoculars up to his eyes and looks over the heads of his audience. As he talks to himself, he turns very slowly clockwise in a tight, 360-degree circle, keeping the binoculars to his eyes and scanning out to the horizon the whole time.

  (Scanning with binoculars.) Now what? Nothing—nowhere—here I am—miles from nowhere. Only one day into it and bottomed out. Empty—badlands—horizon to horizon. No road—no car—no tiny house—no friendly 7-Eleven. Nada. Can’t even track back where I could’ve left the truck and trailer.

  Lowers binoculars; stares out.

  You ask yourself, how did this come to be? How is it possible? What wild and woolly part of the imagination dropped me here? Makes you wonder.

  Looks upstage to horse, back to audience.

  Fucking horse.

  He hangs the binoculars around his neck by their strap and moves upstage toward horse.

  (To audience, approaching horse.) Look at that. That’s where he winds up. Snorts a chunk of oats down his pipe, straight into the lung, and wham! That’s it. End of the day, he’s at the checkout counter. Gasping, wheezing like an old fart. Staggering—dead. Barely even got started on the grand sojourn and he drops out from underneath me.

  He kicks the horse in the belly, then climbs up on its rib cage and sits on the horse, staring out toward the audience. He picks up the binoculars and scans again.

  (Binoculars to eyes.) You try tracking it back in your raggedy mind to the original notion—the “Eureka” of it. You remember the moment very clearly—how it came to you. Surprising—“AUTHENTICITY.” That’s what you come up with—the quest for “AUTHENTICITY.” As though that were some kind of holy mission in itself.

  Lowers binoculars, stares out.

  How could that be? A haunted, ghostly idea to me anymore. At least nowadays—days with age hanging off me like dry moss. Maybe always, I don’t know. Far back as I can remember. Some idea—weighing the true against the false. Measuring, calculating—as though you were ever rock-solid certain—as though you ever had the faintest clue.

  Stops himself. Listens. Pause.

  (To himself, different voice.) And who is it exactly you’re supposed to be appealing to now? Huh? Who? THERE’S NOBODY OUT THERE! Nobody. Do you see anybody?

  He looks through the binoculars. His voice shifts back and forth through this next sequence as though it were a dialogue between two personas.

  No.

  Do you hear anybody?

  Lowers binoculars, listens.

  No.

  Do you have the least little sense of the presence of another being—listening? Listening—

  Pause, listens.

  No. Nothing.

  Then stop blathering on
to yourself, for Christ’s sake.

  What’s the point?

  Just the sound, I guess.

  The sound?

  My voice. Hearing my own voice. Me speaking to me.

  What in the wide world are you talking about now?

  Gives me the impression there’s maybe somebody else.

  Don’t make me sick. Your self is giving your own self the impression there’s maybe somebody else?

  Something like that.

  Who could that be?

  I don’t know.

  You’re one sick puppy.

  I just need to verify certain things.

  Well, do it on your own time.

  Sorry.

  I’ve got better things to do than listen to your whining.

  All right, all right! Can’t we just—

  What?

  Get along.

  Hobart stops himself and looks sheepishly at the audience, as though embarrassed to have been witnessed in this little conflict with himself. He gets off the horse and crosses very deliberately down center, in front of the pit. He talks directly and confidentially to the audience.

  All I can tell you is that I had become well aware of my inexorable descent into a life in which, daily, I was convinced I was not intended to be living.

  (Aside.) This is in the somewhat florid style of the classic narrative. Bear with me. Things will change. It’s going to be a long, rough, and rocky road. I’m not exactly sure what “voice” to use. “Voice” in the sense of—you know—what—what voice suits the predicament. The—uh—what predicament I’m actually—it’s not at all clear. It’s—but hopefully, as things roll along and find their natural—hopefully, something—