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The evening begins with a bang. The deceptive calm of a family restaurant, filled with two disgruntled customers and an inept waitress, is disrupted by offstage sounds of war and destruction. The real disruption begins with the entrance of the Colonel, a middle-aged brute of a man wearing the medals and uniform of a commander, who wheels on Stubbs, a mute paraplegic veteran who served with the Colonel's son. According to the Colonel, they have come "to toast the death of my son and have a nice dessert." While the customers, named only White Man and White Woman, and the waitress, Glory Bee, watch, the Colonel dominates and tyrannizes the stage. Stubbs slowly regains the power of speech and memory, and the tables turn when he reveals his enormous battle scar and hints that he is the Colonel's son. In increasingly bizarre and violent scenes, including a whipping and a food fight, STATES OF SHOCK reaches its shattering conclusion.
In his latest play, States of Shock, Sam Shepard turns a bizarre anniversary party into a grisly yet hilarious reopening of the wounds of war, sex, and family betrayal. This volume also includes Shepard's screenplay for the film Far North and the forthcoming film Silent Tongue.
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Jonathan Southard
reviewed States of Shock on June 23, 2016
States of Shock
A bit abstract for my taste.
If I interpreted this correctly, it seems as though the "character" are more human representations of fears, ethos, weaknesses. The freezing on the stage when they're not speaking, the dancing, the gas masks, the masturbation--I was puzzled when reading this and knew I would be even more puzzled seeing this performed on stage.
The Colonel, who wears so much paraphernalia it is hard to discern which war they're speaking of (there are gas masks in the play--WWII--but also a reference to Little Richard and the Cold War). He takes a wounded veteran named Stubbs to a family restaurant; Stubbs was shot trying in vain to save the Colonel's late son. In the beginning the Colonel wants to establish all the details of the moments leading up to his son's death, and Stubbs either can't or won't comply. As the play continues, as the white couple dining interject complaints or comments (I myself was unsure what to make of them) Stubbs maps out those final moments, but by then the Colonel is set on abandoning him, then cowing him to submission. Stubbs claims several times throughout the play that the Colonel invented his death, as in Stubbs is actually the Colonel's son. The play is rife with biblical references, which some of the characters try to denounce.
Like i said, I am unsure what to make of it, but Sam Shepard has intrigued me, and I would like to continue reading more of his work.
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