Food and Drink in Shepard's Theater

Abstract

Half of Sam Shepard's published plays have food or drink onstage at or very near the beginning, and in at least half of his plays food and drink play an important role. Except perhaps for lobster in Cowboy Mouth and tequila in the same play and in Fool for Love, these are always very ordinary comestibles, but never are they used by Shepard merely to achieve an effect of realism or naturalism, nor are they ever presented to the spectator in an unremarkable or banal manner. In one way or another, Shepard always makes them noticeable and significant. From the beginning he has been aware of theater as spectacle and has known how to exploit all the visual possibilities of food and drink on the stage. The first scene of The Rock Garden (1964) is played in total silence, thus accentuating what is seen. The setting is simple, uncomplicated, focusing the audience's attention on a father and two children seated at a table. The father is totally absorbed in a magazine, and Shepard specifies that" The only action is that of the BOY and GIRL drinking milk." The scene ends with the girl dropping her glass and spilling the milk. Again in 4H Club (1964), food and drink have strong visual accents; typically, however, Shepard does not repeat himself. The stage is empty, except for a small kitchen extreme upstage left where there are two young men. A third young man is downstage facing the audience, kneeling beside a hot plate and stirring something in a pot. He hits the spoon on the pot and serves coffee to all three, who slurp it down and smash the cups on the floor. Then, while one young man sweeps up the pieces, the two others enter, one at a time, loudly crunching an apple. Two of the trio throw an apple back and forth, amusing themselves by imagining an apple war against the pedestrians below.