A Particle of Dread
Page 1
SAM SHEPARD
A Particle
of Dread
Sam Shepard is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of fifty-five plays and three story collections. As an actor, he has appeared in more than sixty films and received an Oscar nomination in 1984 for The Right Stuff. He was a finalist for the W. H. Smith Literary Award for his story collection Great Dream of Heaven. In 2012, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, received the Gold Medal for Drama from the Academy, and has been inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. He lives in New York and Kentucky.
ALSO BY SAM SHEPARD
Heartless
Fifteen One-Act Plays
Day out of Days
Kicking a Dead Horse
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
Paris, Texas
Seven Plays
Motel Chronicles
Rolling Thunder Logbook
Hawk Moon
A VINTAGE BOOKS ORIGINAL, MARCH 2017
Copyright © 2017 by Sam Shepard
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
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 are 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, ICM Partners, 730 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10019.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Shepard, Sam, 1943– author. | Sophocles. Oedipus Rex.
Title: A particle of dread : a play / by Sam Shepard.
Description: Vintage Books original. | New York : Vintage Books, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016036184 (print) | LCCN 2016047844 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101974391 (softcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781101974407 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Oedipus (Greek mythological figure)—Drama. | BISAC: DRAMA / American. | FICTION / Literary.
Classification: LCC PS3569.H394 P37 2017 (print) | LCC PS3569.H394 (ebook) | DDC 812/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016036184
Vintage Books Trade Paperback ISBN 9781101974391
Ebook ISBN 9781101974407
Cover design by Megan Wilson
Cover photograph: Stephen Rea as Oedipus/Otto, Field Day production, Derry, 2013. Photograph © Ros Kavanagh
www.vintagebooks.com
v4.1
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Contents
Cover
About the Author
Also by Sam Shepard
Title Page
Copyright
Cast and Credits
Scene 1
Scene 2
Scene 3
Scene 4
Scene 5
Scene 6
Scene 7
Scene 8
Scene 9
Scene 10
Scene 11
Scene 12
Scene 13
Scene 14
Scene 15
Scene 16
Scene 17
Scene 18
Scene 19
Scene 20
Scene 21
Scene 22
Scene 23
Scene 24
Scene 25
Scene 26
Scene 27
Scene 28
Scene 29
Scene 30
Scene 31
Scene 32
Scene 33
The world premiere of A Particle of Dread was originally produced by Field Day at the Playhouse, Derry, Ireland, and opened on November 30, 2013. It was directed by Nancy Meckler; the set design was by Frank Conway; the costume design was by Lorna Marie Mugan; the lighting design was by John Comiskey; the sound design was by Sam Jackson; the production manager was Lisa Mahony; and the stage manager was Clare Howe. The original cast was as follows:
OEDIPUS/OTTO
Stephen Rea
UNCLE DEL/TRAVELER/TIRESIAS
Lloyd Hutchinson
LAIUS/LAWRENCE/LARRY/LANGOS
Frank Laverty
JOCASTA/JOCELYN
Bríd Brennan
OFFICER HARRINGTON
Iarla McGowan
FORENSIC INVESTIGATOR
R. J. RANDOLPH
Caolán Byrne
MANIAC OF THE OUTSKIRTS
Lloyd Hutchinson
ANTIGONE/ANNALEE
Judith Roddy
Scene 1
OPENING: (No preset music or anything to indicate what’s up ahead other than empty stage. White light up on OEDIPUS, center stage in black-striped bib overalls, short-sleeved white T-shirt, black janitor shoes. His left foot is much larger than his right. He walks with an exaggerated limp. OEDIPUS is mopping up blood from the stage floor. The blood is dripping down from his eyebrows, but OEDIPUS pays no attention to its origins; he just keeps mopping up the constant flow of blood as he speaks.)
OEDIPUS: This…this was the place, wasn’t it? Roads, trees. Right here. Isn’t this the place where you held me down? Your foot on my back. My chest in the mud. Here, wasn’t it? Someone—someone held me while you hammered a steel spike right through my ankle. Yes, that was it! A spike! Flash of light. Your powerful arm. Every inch of blood. Every vein. My ankle remembers. (Pause.) Or no— Was this the place you dropped me off? Could’ve been. Draped in mystery and confusion. The secret let out. Maybe that was it. Full of fear as you were. Trembling, running, hauling me across your back. Flapping like an extra skin. You think I’d forget? Your breath, panting like a bull calf born. Day and night. Leaves and wind. Left for dead. Hanging from an olive tree. A baby human. Left for dead.
(OEDIPUS exits. Lights shift.)
Scene 2
(Downstage center sits UNCLE DEL on a stool: a large muscular man in a white butcher’s apron splattered with blood, rubber boots, long-sleeved plaid shirt open over white T-shirt, sleeves rolled up. He’s digging his hands into large metal bucket in front of him, coming up with bleeding animal skins, dripping blood and streaming water. He wrings them out while listening to LAWRENCE, who is pacing left and right, downstage of DEL, in a dark three-piece suit and overcoat, daubing his sweaty face with white handkerchief.)
LAWRENCE: (Pacing left and right.) I don’t know what it is. Lay awake through the night, staring at beams, counting configurations (Wipes his brow with handkerchief.), patterns on the ceiling—seeing things in the dark—
UNCLE DEL: (Wringing out skin.) What kind of things?
LAWRENCE: (Continues pacing.) I don’t know—faces, maybe. Beings, bats. Why is it, ordinary people, any old body in the world—two people who don’t even want kids, who just want to, you know, have fun— Why is it those people get pregnant like rabbits and abandon their offspring in dumpsters while we—us—mature, honest citizens of the community who actually want to have a child, end up—
UNCLE DEL: Have you tried it, dogg
y-style?
(LAWRENCE stops in his tracks as UNCLE DEL crosses upstage with dripping skin and hangs it to dry on a clothesline.)
LAWRENCE: (After pause.) Yes, actually. We have. We’ve experimented with several different positions—
UNCLE DEL: (Hanging up skin.) To no avail?
LAWRENCE: (Starts pacing again.) Exactly.
(DEL pulls on the clothesline, which is on a pulley. Other skins appear from offstage. DEL turns and crosses downstage to the stool again. He sits on the stool, picks up a glass full of bull’s blood, and drinks.)
UNCLE DEL: Her mounting you, backwards?
LAWRENCE: (Stops.) Excuse me?
UNCLE DEL: Her—you know—astride you, with her ass to your head. You know—you on your back.
LAWRENCE: (Pacing again.) Oh, yes. Of course.
UNCLE DEL: Standing?
LAWRENCE: What?
UNCLE DEL: Both of you standing up. Vertical penetration.
LAWRENCE: Yes.
UNCLE DEL: Squatting?
LAWRENCE: Yes!
UNCLE DEL: Sitting?
LAWRENCE: (Pacing.) Yes!
UNCLE DEL: Underwater?
LAWRENCE: Yes!
UNCLE DEL: Mud?
LAWRENCE: (Stops.) What?
UNCLE DEL: In the mud?
LAWRENCE: Like pigs or something?
UNCLE DEL: Rutting, we used to call it. In the old days. Back in the good old days.
LAWRENCE: I don’t know. (Begins pacing again.) I don’t want to hear about this.
(DEL pulls out a set of three knucklebones and rolls them on the floor in front of his stool. He drinks and reads the bones. Makes notes in a ledger he pulls out from under the stool.)
UNCLE DEL: (Rolling bones.) You don’t remember or—
LAWRENCE: (Pacing.) I don’t remember, no. Yes, that’s right. I don’t remember.
UNCLE DEL: Seems like that would be something you wouldn’t forget.
LAWRENCE: What?
UNCLE DEL: (Making notes.) Rutting in the mud. (Rolling bones.) Maybe you should drink some Memory Juice.
(Offers his glass to LAWRENCE, who refuses.)
LAWRENCE: (Stops.) Look— What’re you doing?
UNCLE DEL: What? Oh, this? Rolling the Bones.
LAWRENCE: Rolling the Bones.
UNCLE DEL: Yes, futures, seeing ahead. Prescience. Same with the intestines on the line. (Motions toward clothesline with dripping skins.) They all tell a tale. Dreams. (Toasts with glass.) It’s all written out somewhere.
(LAWRENCE moves upstage toward the clothesline, stops in front of dripping skins, examines them.)
LAWRENCE: These are somebody’s intestines?
UNCLE DEL: (Rolling bones.) Somebody’s sacrifice. They paid the price.
LAWRENCE: (Touching a skin.) Sacrificed?
UNCLE DEL: That’s right. I believe they took the head off that one I just hung up.
LAWRENCE: What’d he do?
UNCLE DEL: Lied about his origins.
LAWRENCE: Origins. Is that all?
UNCLE DEL: That’s enough.
LAWRENCE: (Moves down toward DEL.) So, do you have any advice for me?
UNCLE DEL: (Continuing to throw bones.) I do, as a matter of fact.
LAWRENCE: Good.
UNCLE DEL: This…seeming misfortune of yours, this childlessness—
LAWRENCE: Yes?
UNCLE DEL: It could turn out to be a blessing in disguise.
LAWRENCE: How do you mean?
UNCLE DEL: I have seen the horrible event projected. I have seen it painted in the bones.
LAWRENCE: What horrible event?
UNCLE DEL: Murder. I have seen the murder. There is no mistake.
LAWRENCE: Whose murder?
UNCLE DEL: Yours.
(LAWRENCE immediately turns his back to DEL and drops to his knees, buries his face in his hands. DEL makes no reaction to this, keeps throwing bones.)
UNCLE DEL: Any child born to you and your lovely queen, Jocasta, will turn out to be your killer and the husband of his mother.
LAWRENCE: (Still on knees.) No!!
UNCLE DEL: The bones never lie.
LAWRENCE: I don’t want to hear about this.
UNCLE DEL: You’re better off barren. Barren or dead.
(DEL leaves bones onstage, picks up his stool, and exits. Lights shift down. LAWRENCE picks up bones, stares at them in his palm, stands, and moves up left. He is interrupted by OEDIPUS, entering from up center.)
Scene 3
OEDIPUS: (To LAWRENCE.) What was this fear? Who first put it in you? Before my birth. Long before: Who put it there? Who first told you of my demon? Was it some treachery from far away? Across what sea? Who first told you about me? How could they have known?
(A terrible shrieking scream from JOCASTA. LAWRENCE and OEDIPUS exit left. A cover is whipped off a steel cage by HARRINGTON. JOCASTA is trapped inside. The cage is rolled down right by actors who play HARRINGTON and RANDOLPH. They exit, leaving JOCASTA clinging to bars of cage, speaking to LAWRENCE, who is offstage, unseen.)
Scene 4
JOCASTA: (Up right, speaking from cage, holding bars.) Larry? Why have you done this to me? This is not going to stop us, you know. It’s not. A cage is not going to come between us—if that’s what you think. Who told you this horror would originate in me? (Pause while she listens. LAWRENCE appears between the dripping skins upstage with two bottles of wine. She doesn’t see him.) There’s black wine in the basement. Stacks of it. Bring me two bottles and we’ll dance. We’ll sing. I’ll take you back to those days when we couldn’t stop touching. Remember those days? Larry? (LAWRENCE reveals himself to her, approaches.) Who told you to do this? Someone must have told you something. Who was it? What did they say? That I might cast some sort of curse on you? On us? On— Who was it, Larry? Tell me. You can talk to me. I won’t give you away. There’s black wine in the basement. Cobwebs and dust. Bring it up here, Larry, bring it.
(LAWRENCE appears stage left with two bottles of wine. He stops and stares at JOCASTA in cage. He keeps approaching cage.)
JOCASTA: (To LAWRENCE.) Oh, see, you’ve found it. I wasn’t lying, was I. Bring it to me, Larry. That’s right. Bring it here. (Pause as LAWRENCE keeps slowly approaching cage.) Was it something about the child? Is that it? A child that never was? Is that what they told you? Whoever— The child— You shouldn’t listen to all that nonsense, Larry. Rumors—what does he know? Mumbo jumbo. Bones, blood, dreams, and guts dripping from clotheslines. I know his game. I’ve seen what he does. How he does it.
(LAWRENCE manages to extract keys from his pocket. He unlocks the cage and lets JOCASTA out. She steps out of the cage and embraces him. He gently pushes her away and picks up a bottle of wine, then pours a glass for her that he draws from the bottle.)
JOCASTA: (Drinks, then…) It was him, wasn’t it? You shouldn’t believe such wild superstitions. (She slowly, seductively approaches him. LAWRENCE holds his ground.) Murder— Is that what he told you? Murder and rape? That’s not our fate. (She pulls LAWRENCE toward her, embraces him, raises her skirt, and wraps a leg around his. LAWRENCE responds; they kiss passionately. She pulls back for a second.)
JOCASTA: We’ll see what comes of this.
(They dance off upstage to tango music as lights go to half and UNCLE DEL comes onstage, embracing what looks to be old laundry or men’s suits; he mimics the dance as LAWRENCE and JOCASTA go off. When he’s alone, DEL signals musician to cut the music. Musician stops.)
Scene 5
UNCLE DEL: (Directly to audience, down center.) What began it all, that’s the question. I’ll tell you what it is. You want to know? It’s simple. But simple things are sometimes the hardest to hear, aren’t they? Murder. Yes. That’s what started this curse on our city. This disease. Plague. Epidemic. Murder. Plain and simple. Right here—years ago, just outside of town. Deserted highway. Desert. No wind to speak of. The bodies were all in pieces. (He begins going around the stage distributing the old clothes as though th
ey represented mangled corpses.) The heads here. Arms and legs over there. They had to search for all the parts. The king’s penis was missing. Imagine that! Some crow or coyote must have got it. Vandals, maybe. No matter. They put the bodies back together. Laid them out like a jigsaw puzzle. The king. That’s what he was. Back when kings were kings. They say a band of bandits waylaid him—outnumbered and overwhelmed him. Others say a single man was the culprit. Ran him over with his own carriage. Scattered his parts and vanished. Now it’s clear this murder has brought the trouble on us. An old defilement we may be sheltering. He’s here among us now, this killer. Snickering at our misery. Slithering between our feet. Daring us to expose him—bring him into the light of day. Until we uncover this vermin we will continue to suffer our slow and painful disintegration. (As he exits left.) But who among you fears they’ll find him in their own dark kitchen?
Scene 6
(Highway 15, site of triple murder. Highway patrol officer PATRICK HARRINGTON is in full uniform, accompanied by forensic investigator R. J. RANDOLPH in an overcoat and blue latex gloves. RANDOLPH is squatting down over one of the ragged and bloody suits of clothes, picking up hair or thread with a tweezer and then dropping evidence into plastic bags while HARRINGTON strolls around through the corpses, taking notes and chewing on a candy bar.)
HARRINGTON: Man oh man! Goddamn Mexicans! Can you believe it?
RANDOLPH: A little hasty to make that assumption right off the bat, Harrington.
HARRINGTON: Oh, really?
RANDOLPH: At this point it’s wide-open. Could’ve been anyone.
HARRINGTON: Sure—maybe aliens or something, huh?