Some people you just connect with on a very deep level. It's how artists work for us, I think. Some of them, you just get this instant flip of the switch where you recognize something very special akin in them as it is in you. I'd love to say Sam Shepard kindled my love for theatre. I don't think it's exactly true, though, it was a local actor whom I hold in high regard who did that. And it was actually this actor who, describing his own "aha moment" with the theatre, spoke of the kind of show where once you walk out, you just want to wander the streets and think about it for a while. Not talk to anybody. Not return to your "regular world" either. I think there's a finite number of shows like that for each one. Of plays that speak to you and find you at just the right time as to be more than just another play you went and saw.
they become something that heals.
they become something that changes you.
That was how it was with Sam. By Sam, I mean of course Sam Shepard, whose eightieth birthday would've been today. I went to see his Fool for Love because I liked the title. I've always been a romantic at heart, though the play isn't what you expect, in the slightest.
It's this wonderful story of a toxic, maddening love, the kind you can't walk away from. The kind that's once in a lifetime. I was at an age when that kind seemed all green lights. I didn't really see the draining, terrifying, soul loss that might also happen. I'm still not sure I do.
Anyway, it's more than just that. Sam was never that easy, though he does have some wonderfully simplistic plays that tell so much. His one act plays, particularly, have a wonderful nuance and potential. As does the devastating Fool for Love. Devastating because more than hurting each other, Eddie and May have been hurt by the world. By their own father, who haunts them to present day and who is, yes, one and the same. Eddie and May are the children of a man leading a double life who, unaware of this terrible, fateful connection, meet as youths and fall quite naturally in love. Recognize in one another a strong, unbearable kinship. Of course, they eventually find out the terrible truth, and their lives after that are just...wrecked. Eddie and May, now both in their thirties are incapable of living apart, or of living at all. They're destroyed to the bone by the mistakes, by the greed, of one single man.
It's a brilliant, beautiful play, the sort where everything goes just right.
For me, it was certainly an iconic play. When I came out of the theatre, I was transfixed. I can still see myself standing opposite the theatre, waiting for the bus. Not quite there. Not willing to return to my world, just desperate to learn everything I could about this wonderful playwright.
From that day, I became obsessed, as I will with many new writers I fall in love with. But with Sam, there's so much to adore. He was so handsome, so charming. He had that true American, Western thing about him, which I've never really liked, but I make an exception for Sam.And he was such a badass.
Sam and Patti Smith in 1971. Credit: Judy Linn
I remember reading in Patti Smith's autobiography how, as a young impressionable girl in the big city, she fell in love with this macho, seductive playwright, whom she didn't know was married. Nor that he was a "big thing". And then, eventually, I think, someone saw her with him, and said, that's Sam Shepard, the playwright.
Sam and Patti's relationship was one of kindred spirits, certainly. Though their romantic relationship ended when she was in her 20s, and he in his 30s (I think), they remained close until his death, at 74. So forty years. They loved each other, they wrote together. When Sam was dying from ALS, losing himself so devastatingly, it was Patti who came to his ranch and stayed with him, writing for him (because he couldn't anymore), and helping him edit.
I don't think I know a more beautiful definition of love. We tend to see that as in "who'll take care of you when you grow old", like who'll keep you clean and fed if you can't do that anymore, and surely, that's a great, extraordinary act of devotion. But when a man has trouble creating, fulfilling his creative role, and pursuing "the Work", as Sam referred to it, why, it's so easy to shrug and say that's not a necessity. It takes a true artist and a true friend to understand the imperative, the need to create, and help fulfil that.
Speaking of definitions of love, it was also Sam who coined my personal favorite, speaking of his wife, his soulmate, Jessica Lange:
I love this woman in a way I can’t describe & a feeling of belonging to each other that reaches across all the pain. It’s as though we’ve answered something in each other that was almost forgotten. I look back on that whole ten years in California & I see myself hunting desperately for something I wasn’t finding. I know the Work point of view is the only true one. That life is inside. That nothing outside can ever finally answer our yearning. I know that’s true but, in some way, finding Jessie has reached something inside me. A part of me feels brand new — re-awakened.
I know even this will change. There’ll be moments of deep regret maybe. But life is a gamble. I felt the weight of that the first time I left home for good. I walked out of that house into the unknown & it scared the shit out of me but the adventure of hitting life straight on was a thrill I’ll never forget. I feel that now — along with the fear. But I see the fear stems from being alone in the world & it has a new meaning for me now. You can be alone in the midst of people or you can be alone & join with the other one’s aloneness. There can be a real meeting between two people at the point where they always felt marooned. Right at the edge. And that’s how it is with me & her.
Sam and Jessica Lange in 1984. Credit: Bruce Webber
You know, they ran away together after meeting on the set of Frances. Sam was married, and, I think, so was Jessica, to the gorgeous Mikhail Baryshnikov. I've always said in love, you should aim for Lange energy -- leaving one of the most stunning ballet dancers of all time for one of the greatest playwrights. And it was interesting, because she and Baryshnikov had an open arrangement, with Mikhail himself living with a fellow dancer at the time, while Jessica was filming and looking after their toddler. And so, she pursued her affair with Sam rather openly, but in the end, that wasn't enough. So they ran away together. Baryshnikov was furious. Heartbroken.
I mean, you probably would be too, right?
I remember the moment I heard about Sam's death. I was at the mechanic's with my then-boyfriend. I was so broken up about it, I just cried and cried. I thought, what a terrible loss. Then, when I read his Spy of the First Person, Sam's gruelling account of slowly losing himself to an unrelenting illness, of witnessing himself as a stranger, I cried again.
I've always thought it must take a unique sort of mind to think to document that, even as you're witnessing yourself slowly disappear. So this one's just to say hello to you, Sam, in the stars where you must be. A piece of writing seems like the best way to acknowledge this occasion. :)
