"Action" by Sam Shepard

Shepard has written a one-act play called Action. It is a sterling success in that it very craftily conjures up questions, thoughts, and feelings about this whole notion of activity - its place, its presence (or lack of), its handling by characters in staged theater. It is less than successful in that it clouds and diminishes the very images and effects it aims to create by virtue of its tendency to go nowhere. In Action, the audience views/experiences two men and two women responding to events and situations people deal with in everyday life. Some of this activity is trite, almost stale; some of it is anything but. Shepard's familiar use of image, momentum, nowness, shock and disconnectedness are all present and very well accounted for.

There is a great deal of support for Shepard and his playwrighting prowess in an article by Gerry McCarthy: "Acting It Out: Sam Shepard's Action." Most of what McCarthy has to say here, most of what he is explaining, appea

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between playwright, actor and script. It is not necessary (or even advisable sometimes) for the playing of a play to be connected to a performer's experience. The actor is an interpreter, a way, an avenue of expression. He can and will be anything the character he is playing dictates. He is not changing anything related to intent or character; he is really not involved in where the play is going - just in taking it there. There is nothing new and exciting here, and McCarthy certainly has not justified throwing out consideration of certain basic parameters just because Sam Shepard writes as he does. McCarthy is equally fluent and supportive when he talks about the whole air of disconnectedness and ambiguity which almost always hovers over Shepard's work. He quotes one of Jeep's lines: Shooter, could you create some reason for me to move? Some justification for me to find myself somewhere else (Shepard 186)? McCarthy comments on that line as follows: Shepard imagines moments of perfect stasis in which the actor has nothing to do, and is left to contemplate his presence within a space exposed to a generalized threat (McCarthy 3). This line of Jeep's summarizes succinctly both the problems with Action and with McCar
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Approximate Word count = 1693
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)