Sam Shepard's HEARTLESS

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/7/12 at 5:19pm

No, he's not! It's just his new play!

It starts previews tonight.

Anyone going?



http://www.signaturetheatre.org/tickets/production.aspx?pid=2362

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 8:19am

I am seeing it on Saturday. Believe it or not, in all my years of theatre-going, I have only ever read a Shepard play. Never seen one performed. Looking forward to it.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 8:45am

Ooh, then I look forward to your report back!

I like Shepard a lot, but I have a really, really hard time reading him.

In college I was in CURSE OF THE STARVING CLASS, and I never made it through the script on my own before the read-through, despite two or three tries.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 9:06am

Did you see the revival of "A Lie of the Mind," at The New Group a few years ago? Marin Ireland was so fricking amazing. I'll never forget her performance, and I loved the play too.

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 9:16am

"Did you see the revival of "A Lie of the Mind," at The New Group a few years ago? Marin Ireland was so fricking amazing. I'll never forget her performance, and I loved the play too."

That play was a dud, despite a good cast.

His recent plays have been quite poor. Let's hope this one's better.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 9:17am

No, I wanted to so badly, though, and heard it was wonderful!

That's one I've never seen in performance.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 9:40am

It really was wonderful. I was just talking with a friend about it the other day and how we can't stop raving about it years later. Laurie Metcalf, who played Ireland's mother, was brilliant as well.

I've never tried to read a Shepard play, and truth be told I have trouble reading any play, but I think it would be especially difficult with "A Lie of the Mind." The piece was dynamite in performance though.

[BwayGeek2]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 11:26am

That production of A LIE OF THE MIND--which I went into completely blind--ended up being my absolute favorite thing I saw that entire year. Everything about it was ridiculously spectacular and, yes, Marin Ireland and Laurie Metcalf gave two of the most unforgettable performances I've ever gotten to see.... (I know that all sounds high-fallutin' and ridiculous, but clearly it really got to me :-P)

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 10:08pm

I ended up seeing this tonight and couldn't really make heads or tails of it. My friend and I walked out saying, "What was going on in this play?!" I don't know what Shepard was saying here, but he and I were not on the same wavelength!

The acting was all good, with Lois Smith being her usual excellent self; she threw off many one-liners that were pretty funny, but ultimately they didn't add up to anything coherent enough for me.

It was kind of surrealistic, often feeling like an Albee play. I kept waiting for a character to have a big reveal and tie some things up, at least thematically. It was clear early on we weren't going to get a straightforward story, and that's fine, but it never brought anything together and left me scratching my head.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 8/8/12 at 10:21pm

I tend to go very black or white about Shepard (and I agree that his play's tend to be hard to read, for some reason--and I have no issue reading and enjoying plays I haven't seen otherwise), but everything I read about this has made it sound like a completely different show from article to article. I'm not really sure if Shepard is best suited at that kind of, as Whizzer says, Albee style of playwriting, at least I tend to prefer his more literal writing, but it's interesting reading people's thoughts.

And I'd kill to see Lois Smith on stage.

[stevenycguy]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 12:01am

What time does a 7:30pm show end ?

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 12:06am

It was over around 9:40. Act one was only about an hour.

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 7:26am

Thanks so much for the review, Whizzer!

I must ask -- despite your obvious reservations about flat-out recommending the play, did you at least find it dramatically compelling in its all-over-the-place-ness?

[After Eight]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 8:42am

"It was kind of surrealistic, often feeling like an Albee play."

Like what Albee play? Everything in the Garden? All Over? Lolita?

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 8:56am

Probably the surreal ones, dipsh!t.

God, you're insufferable.

Updated On: 8/9/12 at 08:56 AM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 9:54am

I wasn't bored, and yes I would recommend seeing it. Perhaps it's the show that explains the mysteries of life to you. Perhaps it just all flew over my head.

Re: Albee both my friend and I said it reminded us of his last play at Playwright's Horizon with Elizabeth Ashley, though we both liked that one much better.

This might be a slight spoiler but here's a "surreal" example from last night:
Lois Smith has been overtaken with a (psychosomatic) disease that has paralyzed her feet and hands. A young female nurse cares for her who suddenly stopped speaking one day. Smith first tells our protagonist Roscoe that the nurse is from Newcastle, England. Then a few minutes later she tells him that the nurse is from Nebraska. When Roscoe is confused she denies ever saying she was from England and can't believe he would make up a thing. Then the nurse begins to start crying and screaming. Smith doesn't react at all. Roscoe remarks that he thought she didn't speak, and Smith only responds with, "Don't worry. This never lasts for long."

I can get into this kind of stuff as it creates interesting atmosphere, but I want some more payoff at the end. Why is the nurse not speaking? How did Smith get in her condition (this is kind of explained)? Why all the lies/misdirection about the nurse? Is the nurse really there? etc

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 10:03am

Huh. Curious... very un-Shepard. I hope I get to see it!

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 10:11am

Report back with your thoughts if you do. Maybe you'll be able to clear up some stuff I had questions about!

[themysteriousgrowl]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 10:17am

(You're Reagan in the picture.)

[PlayItAgain]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 10:21am

How was Gary Cole?

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 10:34am

You're making me Reagan?! I'm hurt.

Cole was good. He had the straight man role. He was a guest in Smith's house, who lived with the nurse and her two daughters. As things got crazier and crazier he got more frustrated and confused.

[playlover2010]

Posted: 8/9/12 at 10:39am

I saw it last night, and for a second preview I thought it was in really great shape. A totally weird play that I kind of loved. I think I need a couple of days to process what it is all about, but I was totally with it the whole time, and there were parts that were totally fascinating. I'm looking forward to going back again in a couple of weeks and seeing what my 2nd experience is like.

The cast is uniformly excellent. Julianne Nicholson is really amazing, and Lois Smith (who I always love) is playing a part like I've never seen her play before. I've never seen Gary Cole on stage before and he was a great straight man. Really solid. Bacon and Gilpin were good too.

As an added benefit its only 2 hours with an intermission. I love me a good short play.

[Tom-497]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 12:18am

SPOILERS THROUGHOUT

I liked Heartless, and I thought it was not so much surreal as supernatural, with a bit of a No Exit/Twilight Zone feel. It seemed to me the characters all had one foot in the grave and one out of it.

The following is stated as fact, but a lot of it is just my interpretation.

The mom (who, if I remember, has an Irish last name like Murphy) briefly mentions "banshees" from Irish folklore. One type of banshee is the ghost of a murdered girl who shrieks to announce a person's imminent death.

The play opens with a banshee's scream, and mom's nurse, the moaning and shrieking Elizabeth, is a banshee - she is the murdered girl whose heart was transplanted into mom's daughter Sally.

Elizabeth is mostly dead and is longing for actual life. Sally, who was declared dead and has the heart of a murdered girl in her, is mostly alive but longing for actual death. Unfortunately, even seemingly foolproof methods of suicide, like stepping off the edge of a high cliff, fail for Sally - she can't cross over fully into death any more than Elizabeth can fully rejoin the living.

All of this is the reason mom lies about Elizabeth's background - mom knows who/what Elizabeth is/was. There are even a couple of hints regarding corpses. For instance, Sally calls Elizabeth someone that her mom "dug up."

Now, banshee Elizabeth is shrieking because Sally's lover, Roscoe, and mom's other daughter, Lucy, are about to die in a car wreck, a la James Dean, whose former bed Roscoe had been sleeping in when he awoke to the banshee scream. As the play ends, Roscoe is heading to new "digs" (again suggesting a graveyard), and the car is apparently being driven by Lucy, who is wasted on mom's painkillers and who heard the same banshee scream as Roscoe.

[wexy]

Posted: 8/13/12 at 10:06am

I saw it Saturday by accident as my friend was visiting from upstate and was staying at Yotel right around the corner and wanted to catch a play. Very convenient

I thought it was OK. I was in Row M and one of the crucial scenes was on the opposite side of the state and were speaking so softly it was tough hearing (and I'm not at assisted device stage yet)The cast was good and its always good to see Ms Smith.

so Mr. Aukin tell them to speak a little louder.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/theater/daniel-aukin-director-of-sam-shepards-heartless.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

[aaronb]

Posted: 8/26/12 at 7:02pm

Saw it last night. Sam Shepard was there and left during the intermission--when I saw him in the lobby, he looked exactly as gloomy as all the headshots ever taken of him.