How does Sam Shepard’s play, ‘Heartless,’ deal with the man/woman issue, and why does it matter
so much? (For fuller comprehension, please read Blog entry #47.)
By the way, I am well
aware that this blog is aimed at actors and not meant to furnish a critical
analysis of playwriting. However, I think that actors should be constantly
researching drama through viewing films and plays - whenever possible - and
reading them, as well. It is extremely important to know how a script is
birthed by a master playwright/screenwriter. Remember that the character you
must identify with as an actor has been conceived by the writer and printed onto
the page – although many changes may occur during rehearsal and shooting. You need to know the precise relationship of
your character to the objective of the script. I’m spending all this time with Heartless because I think it holds
crucial insights into some of the most important personal and political issues
of our time. Actors need in-depth
knowledge of how to bring both heart and mind into their comprehension of a
script.
So we have established
that Heartless principally explores
male/female relations. The battle between the sexes has always been fertile
territory for playwrights. Good
dramatic writing on this subject usually shows women doing their best to stave
off the effects of male thoughtlessness, selfishness and cruelty – whether
overt or subtle – and losing (tragedy) or winning-by-losing (comedy). The
tragic version takes center stage in A
Doll’s House, by Henrik Ibsen – Nora can never see her children again after
she leaves her husband, Torvald. The comic variety is present in, well… just
about everything ever written by Noel Coward – and just about every television
sitcom.
Other types of dramas
that involve internecine conflicts between husbands and wives include women who
are put upon and then do ‘evil’ things to their husbands, like Medea killing
her children or the ‘cold killer’ type like Bette Davis in the film, Another Man’s Poison. But the point is women either die or horrible things happen
to them as a result of their ‘folly’ in retaliating against negative male
behavior.
The suggestion is that
women, however bad the situation may be, are not allowed the dramatic license
of murder unless they get caught or destroy themselves. Women who walk out on
men usually pay a price, but men frequently leave women and go on to do other
things without having to account for their behavior. Shakespeare often shows us
this pattern: Brutus in Julius Ceasar emotionally abandons Portia, who ends up
killing herself, and then there’s Ophelia, whom Hamlet is contracted to marry
until he’s consumed by the need to avenge his father’s death. Ophelia kills
herself. And what about Antony leaving Cleopatra because the war takes him
away? Another suicide, by asp, this time. Do we condemn these men for their
actions? No. We are inclined to nod our heads sagely and say, “They had more
important things to do.”
There is one notable
reversal of this behavior in Shakespeare – trust the bard to ring all the
changes on human behavior – and that’s Cressida in Troilus and Cressida. She
abandons Troilus for Achilles and gets away with it. But, do we respect her?
Perhaps, but she didn’t do it for a noble cause – and she was absolved of her
ties to her former lover by Pandarus, who has a whole school of bad behavior
named after him on this account!
So Shepard has a bevy of current and classical
writers raking over the same subject of man vs. woman, man always wins. What
makes his angle so fresh on this well-worn subject?
His first major play on the
war of the sexes was Fool for Love in
1983. Returning Man begs Woman #1 to let him stay – after walking out on her
for Woman #2. We’ve seen it a million times. But seldom has this issue been so
wittily presented, with both protagonists apparently equally strong. Nor does it usually feel like such a slap in
the face when the man ultimately abandons her again – although the evidence of
betrayal is there from the start, and the man never logically refutes it.
The fact is that we are
fooled by his charm and a sense that he, himself, believes in his ‘repentance’
– although he never really repents. We are transfixed by his need to return, and by the need of the
woman, although she does everything she can to appear independent of him. She
has, in fact, taken up with Guy #2, who shows up in the play, and although he
actually has a job and treats her nicely, he isn’t half as cool or good looking
as ‘Returning Man,’ who is such a charismatic loser, women in the audience
drool over him, and the men would give anything to be him – so they could get the women, if not for any other
reason. Shepard’s dialogue in this play
goes way beyond amusing, actually; it has the flavor of the American West and
the spirit of ‘can-do.’ We fall for Returning Man who’s actually a total louse
and loser, because he is, quite simply, the personification of the American
Dream Man – the one the American Dream is built on. Without him, we’re bored
and everything we want doesn’t exist. The play doesn’t solve anything, but it
shows us exactly the dream/nightmare in which men and women were engaged at
that moment.
Twenty-seven years have
passed since the writing of Fool for Love
and now it’s time for the full-blown nightmare of Heartless. Curiously, or
purposely, the play has a feeling of Greek tragedy, although it still takes
place in Shepard country: the spacious, mountainous Far West of great views and
fresh air. One of the characters actually jumps off a mountain – and lives.
Could it be that she is already dead?
The delightful, clever
dialogue we associate with Shepard is present only fitfully, and he is still
cagey about anything too factual. Our leading man is no longer charismatic and
witty. He’s confused and aging, but one thing we know for sure is that he’s
deserted his wife and children. The
women – all four of them attack or give him the cold shoulder to begin with,
but he is persistent in his attentions to all of them. Only one sees through him, the mother, because
she’s too old to be attracted, has seen it all, and was probably married to and
deserted by a man exactly like him. Besides, she is wise enough to hold
everything together while the man is causing chaos. (I’m not going to give away
the plot, because I seriously hope anyone who reads this, will go and see the
play if they haven’t already done so!) Two of the women are horribly maimed,
and according to their scars, it isn’t just in the area of their hearts. It is
suggested in a hazy Shepardian manner that the third is in the process of
falling prey to exactly the same predator as the other two. The point of all this is that women don’t
change their position in relation to men because they have been ‘predatorized.’
They make every effort to do so, but something stops them. Again, Shepard shows
us this horrible fate without attempting to explain it.
We are the Chorus in
this heartfelt Greek Tragedy. Obviously, not all of us fall prey to this
hideous male/female machination. Some avoid it altogether, and others realize
what’s going on and their fate combined with their own characters allow them to
make choices so they can eventually escape.
In this particular
election year - taking into consideration that half the electorate are women -
a play that addresses the subject of women passively allowing men to violate
the sacred space of the female body should be taken very seriously. By the way,
many women are not deterred from aborting unwanted children by making it
illegal. They find ways that are often extremely painful, life-threatening and frequently
leave them unable to bear children when they are ready and desire to have them.
Whether Sam Shepard had any of this in mind when he wrote the play is up for
grabs.
What is perfectly clear
is that one of our foremost playwrights feels compelled to write about the fact
that women – complicit or not - are still at the mercy of frequently unmerciful
men. There’s an unseen character in Heartless,
who is none-the-less ever present: the man’s dog. Is the dog ‘stupid’ because
it fails to bite the hand that betrays it? Or does it just need more time to
figure out its options…
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