Cover

Title Page

Copyright

A VINTAGE BOOKS ORIGINAL, SEPTEMBER 2013

Copyright © 2013 by Sam Shepard

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Caution: These plays are fully protected, in whole, in part, or in any form under the copyright laws of the United States of America, the British Empire including the dominion of Canada, and all other countries of the copyright union, and are subject to royalty. All rights, including professional, amateur, motion picture, radio, television, recitation, and public reading, are strictly reserved. All inquiries for performance rights should be addressed to the author’s agent, Berman, Boals and Flynn, 225 Lafayette Street, Suite 1207, New York, NY 10012.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Shepard, Sam.
[Plays. Selections]
Heartless : a play / By Sam Shepard.
pages   cm
ISBN 978-0-345-80680-2
eBook ISBN 978-0-345-80682-6
1. Ghost plays   I. Title.
PS3569.H394 H47 2013
812′.54—dc23

Cover design by Megan Wilson
Cover photograph © Eky Studio/Shutterstock

v3.1_r2

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to:

Santa Fe Institute
Sylvia Plath
César Aira
Matthew Warchus
Jim Houghton
and
Peter Brook

The world premiere of Heartless was produced by Signature Theatre, New York City (James Houghton, Founding Artistic Director; Erika Mallin, Executive Director; Beth Whitaker, Associate Artistic Director), and opened on August 27, 2012. It was directed by Daniel Aukin; the set design was by Eugene Lee; the costume design was by Kaye Voyce; the lighting design was by Tyler Micoleau; the sound design was by Eric Shimelonis; and the production stage manager was Donald Fried. The original cast was as follows:

Epigraph

What moment in the gradual decay

Does resurrection choose? What year? What day?

— VLADIMIR NABOKOV

Everything does indeed seem to me to be shadow and evanescence. My head spins with anguish. Really, that is the world: a desert of fading shadows.

— EUGENE IONESCO

Act One