February 10 at La Mama Dog and Rocking Chair. "Vibrations" M. McClure calls them. Like Zoo Story Shep gives plays to Albee in Greenwich Village. February 1965 in the New Playwrights Series at the Cherry Lane Up to Thursday produced by Albee and Wilde with Wilson's Home Free and Foster's Balls plays First commercial production. Shep acts in the show when Lyons gets hurt.
Comment on Shep avoiding the draft by pretending to be a heroin addict.
Comment his plays to the whole Vietnam era plays now produced.
Lionized by Le Roi Jones and Edward Albee writes a review of Icarus' Mother at Cafe Cino with Aaron O'Conner, Robert Lyons, Stephanie Gordon and Harvey Keitel.
Introduced around the Caffe Cino by Michael Smith. Genius of the OOB circuit.
April 16, 1965 Chicago (Obie) based on Shep trip to Chicago to see Aaron in The Knack, note the character Joy Ragni and Rado are writing Hair with O'Conner and on a bill with Ferlinghetti's The Customs Inspector in Baggy Pants. Comment two generations of poets. Is Ferl part of the Living poet theatre? Shep comment on images and writing in one day.
O'conner on acting "on the edge of an improvisation without being an improvisation...you have to create a world out there...vaudevillian edge...on a proscenium or in front of you...language was facts and figures...not reading it but by doing it and finding a way to do it."
Ralph Cook directed Chicago for Th. Genesis and Tom O'Horgan redirected it for La Mama and a European tour. O'Conner "theatrical reality" Smith to be director with Shep work, nothing extraneous, R. Cook is important to the early defn. of Shep.
Fall 1965 Icarus' Mother (Obie) at Caffe Cino directed by Michael Smith. "What Sam wanted done...he came to rehearsals." He had just written it and expected it to happen...needs to deal with the naturalistic acting problems in not only the symbolism, play the reality. No career intention behind his work and the meaning of the work was never defended. Smith does not bring up the meaning uncool and the work would dissolve to say anything specific, "a style of the time not to be able to be direct about content...very hard for the actors to figure out what they were doing."
Sept. 1965 4H Club later broadcast on Theatre of the Ear.
13 drafts for True West, early antithetical to his crdo(?) of "action writing inspired by painter Jackson Pollack action painting".
On rewriting: "I've found that I'm too flippant about what I write...that's where the rewriting comes in...leaves the early work behind not notes, I write the plays before I get to another kind of play...".
Joyce Aaron introduces Shep to Chaikin and Jacques Levy at the Open and Wynn Handman at the American Place.
Chicago, Red Cross from a job in Phila in the Park and Turista on their travel to Mexico, back from Mexico Shep swore he would not ride in a plane. Compare to Faber who rides on planes and crashes on the way to Mexico City.
Aaron on acid and the Shep piece in Motel Chronicles. Shep's feeling and caring, "nursed me back into language, helped me through the experience of my own birth." 1400 Thousand in Minnesota, how his experience becomes his writing.
Aaron views on Shep language and the different voice inside you..."ja, ong or improvising on a sing note. Or even having a baby. He always wrote by longhand, sitting in a corner, hours at at time with a hand going through his hair...He was really consumed...rarely rewrote except La Turista...he just threw out one act and brought in another. He changed the whole second act. A very sensitive guy."
Levy...all of the female characters were based on her..."Sam and I struck it off really well, and I did Red Cross when it was done off'Broadway-his first off B play on the double bill with a John Guare play at the Provincetown Playhouse.
Claims an influence for Shep to put anything onstage... Red Cross Twice the first at Judson Church.
1965 Th Co of Boston read Three and Melons and does Icarus' Mother with Blythe Danner which premieres at Cino.
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