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Four sides of a triangle
Actor Jack Tarlton in rehearsals for Chorale: A
Sam Shepard Roadshow
Chorale – A Sam Shepard Roadshow
Belgrade Theatre, B2,
Coventry
*****
SAM Shepard is best known as an actor, musician and film director, but
his early poetry, music and theatre pieces annunciate the foundations of
his work.
Roadshow
is used with two, possibly three, quite distinct meanings; one a journey
through his life from Illinois to wherever, one his work, and one a
psychological mending from abused child to ‘attempting to be normal’
adult.
You could add that the
backdrop films used through the four pieces presented add a road movie
feel to the action. Actors John Chancer, Jack Tarlton and Valerie Grogan
plus musicians from band the Herons! perform throughout.
It is billed as three plays,
two films and one gig – but it, over the four separate performances,
2.45 and 8pm each day, gives us a range of early, less-known work. Their
link is souls in crisis.
The Holy Ghostly
is a short autobiographical play, ostensibly about a man who doesn’t
know he’s dead – and waiting for the immortal Chindi to collect his
soul.
His son waits with him in the
badlands of South Dakota. Their animosity is palpable. Finally, the son
shoots him to prove he is already dead. This is strong, dark,
challenging work.
The War in Heaven
is a play set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. An angel has been sent
down to fetch a great man’s soul – but because he didn’t have one the
angel is stuck pleading with two angels around him to take him home.
Savage/love
is a short and gripping film from 1981 about the contortions and
isolation we have to go through to be loved. It features Shepard’s
friend Joseph Chiakin whose Aphasia after a stroke inspired War in
Heaven.
The final piece is a tour de
force – The Animal (YOU) and the one that was commissioned for
the Latitutde Festival in 2012 - of poetry and music, varied and
wonderfully expressive, full of comedy, anguish, wise words and more.
This one is unmissable is you
like Jack Kerouac, Tom Waits and Dylan. It feels like a cabaret show
should feel, with so much to ponder.
I am in complete awe of the
actors being able to deliver so much material. This is great work and I
wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Directed by Simon Usher th
this joint Belgrade and Presence Theatre production
runs to 17-05-14 and is then on tour to 04-07-14.
Jane Howard
13-05-14
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