[Except for Melodrama Play], which has something approximating a conventional plot, [the plays collected in Shepard's Five Plays] are all constructed in the same fashion. He puts a number of not very well differentiated characters into a situation in which an undefined something seems to be going on and lets them talk, either in long monologues or in exchanges that tend toward single-sentence lines. It is possible to find meaning, in the traditional sense, in his works, to assume that the bookcase chore in Fourteen Hundred Thousand is a lifetime task, unwillingly undertaken; that Icarus's Mother is about the bomb; that Melodrama Play is incidentally concerned with making satirical points about the pop-music industry. Yet the communication of ideas is not Shepard's concern. (p. 241)
Red Cross, probably the most interesting of the plays, provides a good introduction to Shepard's work. It takes place in a cabin in which everything is white. As it opens, Jim and Carol are in conversation, and she goes into a long monologue describing an imagined skiing accident in which she is totally destroyed. After she leaves, the Maid enters, and she and Jim discuss his crabs, which he proposes to cure by switching beds with Carol. Then there is a long sequence in which he tries to teach the Maid to swim, viciously pushing her beyond her capacity until she gets cramps and drowns…. Carol returns and announces that she is being eaten by bugs. As Jim turns to look at her, a stream of blood running down his forehead becomes visible to the audience. "What happened!" she asks. "When?" he replies.
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