Word: shepards
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Shepard's Simpatico occupies very arid territory...
...piled at the foot of the bed. Two men are engaged in a long discussion of a crime they committed years before, involving the blackmail of a horse-racing official. Carter (Ed Harris) is well dressed, assertive, nervous. Vinnie (Fred Ward) is grungy, passive, primitive. We're in Sam Shepard country, all right, a place of blasted American dreams and macho power games. There was a time (Curse of the Starving Class, True West, Fool for Love) when that country was an essential stop on any tour of the American theater. No longer. Simpatico, Shepard's first new full-length...
...Shepard, of course, has lately turned most of his attention to Hollywood, acting in movies (The Pelican Brief, Steel Magnolias), directing a couple (Far North) and being the husband of a Hollywood star, Jessica Lange. His new work, which opened last week off-Broadway under Shepard's own direction, seems an exercise in nostalgia for his old, avant-garde self. The plot is purposely spare, and the dialogue maddeningly elliptical, rising only to an occasional pretentious epigram: "People drifting apart -- it's worse than death...
...talented cast (including Beverly D'Angelo as the woman who left Vinnie for Carter and James Gammon as the disgraced racing official) huffs and puffs but can't blow any life into these windy three hours. Shepard's wordplay lacks the wit and profane poetry of more accomplished practitioners like David Mamet. Simpatico is both coy and lazy: it invites the audience to fill in the gaps, to look for meanings. No thanks...
...Broadway is also attracting top stars and prestige playwrights. This month Vanessa Redgrave opens in Vita and Virginia and the Joseph Papp Public Theater premieres Sam Shepard's Simpatico. In December the Public has a new Hal Prince musical, The Petrified Prince. January brings a trio of one-acters by Woody Allen, David Mamet and Elaine May. Neil Simon, a Broadway pillar for a third of a century, made news recently when he said that mainstem plays had become too expensive to produce. Now even he is off-Broadway bound...