Kicking a Dead Horse Book

"Look, there's a saying in the cowboy culture that a real cowboy has the horseshit on the outside of his boots." - Sam Shepard

This one man play opens with Hobart Struther stuck in the desert attempting to bury his horse who has just choked to death on his oats. As he talks to himself and the audience we learn that he is a successful art dealter who has abandonded his life to go on a mission to find "authenticity". In his efforts to bury the horse in a grave too shallow he loses or tosses aside all his Western gear, including his cowboy hat.

Kicking a Dead Horse has the black humor and character development I have enjoyed in many Shepard plays and short stories, however, it lacks the same emotional depth of previous work that has often moved me to tears.

An old man is stranded in a dreamlike wasteland due to the death of his horse, and must decide what to carry with him, and what to leave behind. The play is a one man piece that in its premise and language is reminiscent of Waiting for Godot, and fits neatly into the lineage of Shepard's plays. The man is a New York art dealer who made his fortune selling the artwork of the old west, and following trouble with his wife at home has journeyed deep into the badlands in search of the old west and that ever elusive beast of authenticity. The language is as obtuse and as meaty as Shepard ever is, and although it is written as a monologue it could be argued that the words form a dialogue the man has with his own bitter conscience. Throughout the play the man questions and discards his identity as a cowboy of the lost west, literally throwing his hat and boots into the giant pit he has dug to bury his horse in, followed by the horse itself.