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| Richard Gere. |
“KILLER’S HEAD” and “ACTION”
[Drama/One-Acts] A: Sam Shepard; D: Nancy Meckler; S: Henry Millman; C: Susan
Denison; L: Edward M. Greenberg; P: American Place Theatre; T: American Place Theatre
(OB); 4/4/75-5/3/75 (34)
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| Marcia Jean Kurtz, R.A. Dow, Richard Lynch, Dorothy Lyman. |
Critic Edith Oliver described the latter of these Sam
Shepard one-acts as “abstract,” “enigmatic,” and “baffling,” but she asserted
that it was “frequently funny and playful, and it holds the attention to the
end.” John Simon called it “all flagrant and mindless borrowing from Beckett,
with a sprinkling of Pinter,” though without Beckett’s significance. And Clive
Barnes, also mentioning the Pinter-Beckett connection, thought Shepard shared
the Irish writer’s “nihilistic humanism.”
The strange drama, “Action,” depicted two bald, fur-clad men
(R.A. Dow and Richard Lynch) and two normally-dressed women (Marcia Jean Kurtz
and Dorothy Lyman) in a warm cabin during a cold Christmas as they go through a
variety of bizarre actions, including behaving like dancing bears, imitating
pigs, chewing at one another’s arms in hunger, tearing up a fish’s innards,
attempting to read a book but being unable to find their place, hanging up
laundry, and so on.
Neither speech nor activity seemed to make much sense and
not a few spectators departed midway through. Oliver suggested it was all about
“restraint or captivity and fear and sudden release,” while Clive Barnes
thought it dealt with “time and action—or rather no time and inaction. . . . And the people are imprisoned in the cell
of their own inability to act,” occupying the time wit meaningless role-playing
and business.
The well-presented piece was first done at London’s Royal
Court Theatre, this being its American premiere.
“Killer’s Head” was an eight-minute, pause-laden, solo sketch
starring soon-to-be movie star Richard Gere as Mazon, a blindfolded man strapped to an electric chair as he awaits execution. A former horse breeder, he pours out stream-of-consciousness dialogue during his final moments, brooding on the
future horse-breeding experiences he will miss when he’s dead. “[A] bright idea
that should have been put out of its misery before it put us into ours,” sniped
Simon.
Regardless of the blowback, “Action” was responsible for
Shepard’s getting an OBIE for Distinguished Playwriting.
