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A Particle of Dread
In A Particle of Dread, Sam Shepard takes one of the most famous plays in history—Oedipus Rex—and transforms it into a modern American classic. In this telling, Oedipus, King of Thebes, prophesized to kill his father and marry his mother, alternates between his classical identity and that of contemporary "Otto." His wife (and true mother), Jocasta, is also called Jocelyn, and his antagonist (and true father) is split into three characters, Laius, Larry, and Langos. Two present-day policemen from the Southwest stand in for the Greek chorus as they investigate the murder case. Dazzlingly inventive, ringing with the timelessness of myth, A Particle of Dread is an unforgettable work that grapples with questions of storytelling and destiny--the narratives that we pass down, and how they shape our lives. It is a play that lingers in the mind long after we finish the last scene.
128 pages, Paperback
Published March 21, 2017
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About the author
Sam Shepard
221 books655 followersSam Shepard was an American artist who worked as an award-winning playwright, writer and actor. His many written works are known for being frank and often absurd, as well as for having an authentic sense of the style and sensibility of the gritty modern American west. He was an actor of the stage and motion pictures; a director of stage and film; author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs; and a musician.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 7, 2017
~ O Édipo de Sam Shepard ~
Talvez 2017 seja o ano em que autores de língua inglesa reescrevam clássicos gregos. Colm Tóibín (House of No Names), Natalie Haynes (The Children of Jocasta), David Vann (Bright Air Black), Kamila Shamsie (Home Fires) partem de tragédias gregas criando uma ponta entre passado clássico e o presente, e reverberando aqui o que foi dito lá. Em sua última peça (originalmente encenada na Irlanda, em 2013), Sam Shepard faz uma espécie de experiência pós-moderna com Édipo em A PARTICLE OF DREAD (OEDIPUS VARIATIONS), lançada em forma de livro este ano.
A dualidade é o que marca o texto, que tem como cenários a Grécia Antiga e o deserto da Califórnia. Édipo também é Otto, assim como Jocasta é Jocelyn, e Tirésias é Tio Del. A trama mantém-se fiel, à medida do possível, ao original, na qual uma profecia diz que Édipo matará o pai, e se casará com a mãe. Tentando evitar isso, o pai, Laio, tenta se livrar da criança, e o que vem depois é mais do que conhecido.
Mas é a questão da identidade e o destino que ganha mais força aqui. Quando Édipo tem dúvidas existencialistas sobre quem ele é, Jocasta lhe responde: “Seu tormento não conhece limites! [...] Aprenda a amar a tinta negra a sombra de tinta negra da morte tanto quanto você ama a luz do alvorecer”.
Shepard, porém, não está amarrado à trama original, como o próprio título indica, são “Variações” sobre um tema, então, o dramaturgo tem espaço para criar sobre as possibilidades – flertando especialmente com as tramas de detetive e o gore – dá a sensação de haver sangue para todo lado. A particle of dread pode não atingir o mesmo potencial dos melhores textos de Shepard. Mas uma peça de Sam Shepard é sempre uma peça de Sam Sherpad, e vale muito.
Talvez 2017 seja o ano em que autores de língua inglesa reescrevam clássicos gregos. Colm Tóibín (House of No Names), Natalie Haynes (The Children of Jocasta), David Vann (Bright Air Black), Kamila Shamsie (Home Fires) partem de tragédias gregas criando uma ponta entre passado clássico e o presente, e reverberando aqui o que foi dito lá. Em sua última peça (originalmente encenada na Irlanda, em 2013), Sam Shepard faz uma espécie de experiência pós-moderna com Édipo em A PARTICLE OF DREAD (OEDIPUS VARIATIONS), lançada em forma de livro este ano.
A dualidade é o que marca o texto, que tem como cenários a Grécia Antiga e o deserto da Califórnia. Édipo também é Otto, assim como Jocasta é Jocelyn, e Tirésias é Tio Del. A trama mantém-se fiel, à medida do possível, ao original, na qual uma profecia diz que Édipo matará o pai, e se casará com a mãe. Tentando evitar isso, o pai, Laio, tenta se livrar da criança, e o que vem depois é mais do que conhecido.
Mas é a questão da identidade e o destino que ganha mais força aqui. Quando Édipo tem dúvidas existencialistas sobre quem ele é, Jocasta lhe responde: “Seu tormento não conhece limites! [...] Aprenda a amar a tinta negra a sombra de tinta negra da morte tanto quanto você ama a luz do alvorecer”.
Shepard, porém, não está amarrado à trama original, como o próprio título indica, são “Variações” sobre um tema, então, o dramaturgo tem espaço para criar sobre as possibilidades – flertando especialmente com as tramas de detetive e o gore – dá a sensação de haver sangue para todo lado. A particle of dread pode não atingir o mesmo potencial dos melhores textos de Shepard. Mas uma peça de Sam Shepard é sempre uma peça de Sam Sherpad, e vale muito.
April 26, 2024
read this last night over steak tartare and a glass of red wine. going to get crazy into sam shepard now
March 2, 2017
https://msarki.tumblr.com/post/157911...
Shepard's interesting and well-written dialogue will be wasted on a reader generally ill-informed and unversed in oedipal constructions. And personal indifference brought to any creative work results in a failure of experience more often the fault of the reader. But though this Shepard play is possibly a worthy entertainment presented live on stage, it proves a basic bore when having to resort only to the page.
Shepard's interesting and well-written dialogue will be wasted on a reader generally ill-informed and unversed in oedipal constructions. And personal indifference brought to any creative work results in a failure of experience more often the fault of the reader. But though this Shepard play is possibly a worthy entertainment presented live on stage, it proves a basic bore when having to resort only to the page.
July 12, 2017
This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 2.0 of 5
I love to read plays and don't have as many opportunities to do so since the Fireside Theatre Book Club went out of business (when was that...the 1990's?). There seems to slowly be a revival of getting plays in print for the general reading audience.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with Sam Shepard's work, that he'd be drawn to the Oedipus story. Shepard has written for years about families and family dynamics and Oedipus is the original story of a dysfunctional family. But when I read or hear about a story/play/film that is a re-telling of a classic, I can't help but wonder: Why? What is missing from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex that we need to re-tell it? Is it just that our modern audience can't relate to it? We can't identify with oracles and ... well, I'm no sure what other parts would be so foreign to a modern audience. But, well, Shepard wants to try this and we'll go along.
But A Particle of Dread is best defined by the sub-title: Oedipus Variations. This play has a very random feel about it. Short, segmented scenes are assembled to try to fill a narrative. It's a bit jumbled or disjointed but generally works okay. There are some humorous scenes which feel very out-of-place for me. Perhaps this is what a modern audience needs? A chance to laugh among the pathos?
Even after reading through this, I ask myself: Why? What was the point here? Shepard took a classic story, chopped it up, set it in the present, added some humor, and tossed it back together. It's less coherent than the classic, which in my mind makes it less relevant instead of more-so.
If this were written by anyone other than Sam Shepard would it ever have been staged and published?
I'm glad to have read this, but if by some odd bit of coincidence any theatre near me were to stage it (including the Guthrie) I would not likely run out to get a ticket.
Looking for a good book? Sam Shepard's script, A Particle of Dread, is a retelling of the Oedipus story, but turns out to be less relevant to modern audiences than a good translation of the original.
I received a digital copy of this script from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
I love to read plays and don't have as many opportunities to do so since the Fireside Theatre Book Club went out of business (when was that...the 1990's?). There seems to slowly be a revival of getting plays in print for the general reading audience.
It should come as no surprise to anyone who is familiar with Sam Shepard's work, that he'd be drawn to the Oedipus story. Shepard has written for years about families and family dynamics and Oedipus is the original story of a dysfunctional family. But when I read or hear about a story/play/film that is a re-telling of a classic, I can't help but wonder: Why? What is missing from Sophocles' Oedipus Rex that we need to re-tell it? Is it just that our modern audience can't relate to it? We can't identify with oracles and ... well, I'm no sure what other parts would be so foreign to a modern audience. But, well, Shepard wants to try this and we'll go along.
But A Particle of Dread is best defined by the sub-title: Oedipus Variations. This play has a very random feel about it. Short, segmented scenes are assembled to try to fill a narrative. It's a bit jumbled or disjointed but generally works okay. There are some humorous scenes which feel very out-of-place for me. Perhaps this is what a modern audience needs? A chance to laugh among the pathos?
Even after reading through this, I ask myself: Why? What was the point here? Shepard took a classic story, chopped it up, set it in the present, added some humor, and tossed it back together. It's less coherent than the classic, which in my mind makes it less relevant instead of more-so.
If this were written by anyone other than Sam Shepard would it ever have been staged and published?
I'm glad to have read this, but if by some odd bit of coincidence any theatre near me were to stage it (including the Guthrie) I would not likely run out to get a ticket.
Looking for a good book? Sam Shepard's script, A Particle of Dread, is a retelling of the Oedipus story, but turns out to be less relevant to modern audiences than a good translation of the original.
I received a digital copy of this script from the publisher, through Edelweiss, in exchange for an honest review.
March 27, 2019
I wasn't particularly impressed with this play when I saw the original Signature Theatre production in 2014 but that's just proof that a script's reception can be entirely shaped by its initial cast and director. Reading this now, I think the play's unqualifiedly great, a completely effective retelling of the Oedipus myth in an American vernacular and with a noir-like cinematic structure. What I'd written off as a messy last work I'd now label a brilliant coda for an impressively long and varied playwriting career.
January 22, 2021
With the caveat that I'm sure this would have resonated more strongly with me if I had more than a passing familiarity with the Oedipus story, this is yet another genuinely fascinating work from Shepard.
For a playwright who so often presents things in fairly straightforward (or at least deceptively plainspoken) fashion, this is a frankly dizzying and even dissonant display of intellect and freewheeling creative energy. That he was able to turn something like this out so late in his career is nothing short of remarkable, even if it ultimately left me somewhat cold.
For a playwright who so often presents things in fairly straightforward (or at least deceptively plainspoken) fashion, this is a frankly dizzying and even dissonant display of intellect and freewheeling creative energy. That he was able to turn something like this out so late in his career is nothing short of remarkable, even if it ultimately left me somewhat cold.
July 25, 2019
A play by Sam Shepard written in 2016 toward the end of his life and based on the Greek Oedipal Variations. Instead of Oedipus, you get Otto. Tiresias is "Uncle Del." Antigone is Annalee. Get the drift. Greek tragedy set in Duarte. Amphitheaters moved to trailer parks. What can I say? I read it.
January 16, 2018
I think this play captured something about reading O.R., Antigone, etc that I only half noticed when first reading them. Their darkness, sure, but other things too. It's like a darkness you can feel and sense and see, but Shepard throws it in your face. And it's fun! What more do you want?
June 20, 2019
Would like to see it performed
December 26, 2019
Wavering between a 2 and a 3, mainly because I’m alternately repulsed and intrigued by how gritty this play is. There is a lot of cool imagery in this.
September 6, 2024
Okay. A lot of the scenes are expositional.
Taught me that scenes could be a page long.
Taught me that scenes could be a page long.
Read
February 6, 2017This was okay. But I am not really sure what it aimed to say, or that it offers anything new to the Oedipus story.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews