美国国家公共电台 NPR Celebrated Playwright And Actor Sam Shepard Dies

 

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Actor and playwright¹ Sam Shepard has died.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE RIGHT STUFF")

SAM SHEPARD: (As Chuck Yeager) I think I see a plane over here with my name on it.

CORNISH: That's from his Oscar-nominated performance as test pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 movie "The Right Stuff." Shepard was also a leading American playwright. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for his play "Buried Child." He died last Thursday at his home in Kentucky of complications from Lou Gehrig's disease. Here's NPR's Neda Ulaby with our remembrance.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE²: Who would have guessed Sam Shepard was afraid of flying? In 1998, Shepherd told WHYY's FRESH AIR about meeting the real pilot who broke the sound barrier.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SHEPARD: I got to talking to him about flying and all that. And he says, you know, fear is part and parcel of the thing that you take on. It's that you're able to face it. To me, that's the interesting part about courage, you know? It's not that you don't have fear. It's that you look it in the eye.

ULABY: Shepard was a famously masculine theater presence, a craggy cowboy who infused off-Broadway with a tough Western virility³ in the 1960s. His plays like "Buried Child" were about struggling families, addiction⁴ and deception⁵. A recent Broadway revival⁶ featured Ed Harris, Shepard's co-star in "The Right Stuff," as a vitriolic⁷ father scolding an adult child for coming home.

(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "BURIED CHILD")

ED HARRIS: (As Dodge) You're a grown man. You shouldn't be needing your parents at your age. It's unnatural⁸. There's nothing we can do for you now anyway. Couldn't you find a way to make a living down there? Couldn't you find some way to make a living and support yourself?

ULABY: The playwright grew up bouncing from Army base to Army base with a strict military dad who imposed a lot of rules.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SHEPARD: Never show any feeling was one of the rules.

ULABY: The family eventually settled in rural California. At one point the future playwright planned to be a veterinarian. But it was partly because of his father's alcoholism that Shepard moved out to join a travelling theatre troupe⁹. Predictably, his dad was furious.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SHEPARD: Broke windows and tore the doors off, stuff like that.

ULABY: But Shepard started touring the country, performing in clubs and churches before moving to New York City in 1963.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SHEPARD: I was suddenly on the Lower East Side, on Avenue C and 10th Street, living with jazz musicians.

ULABY: Shepard embraced the avant garde. He hung out with the likes of Patti Smith. He played drums with the psychedelic folk group The Holy Modal Rounders.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LAUGH-IN")

THE HOLY MODAL ROUNDERS: (Singing, unintelligible).

ULABY: That's from a 1968 appearance on the TV show "Laugh-In." By then Shepard was hitting his stride with a series of plays that tapped into a suppressed fury and a Bohemian sympathy for drifters, losers and other people scrabbling on the margins¹⁰. His play "Fool For Love" was revived on Broadway in 2015. It concerned an explosive couple clashing in a cheap motel.

(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "FOOL FOR LOVE")

NINA ARIANDA: (As May) I am smarter than you are and you know it. I can smell your thoughts before you even think them.

SAM ROCKWELL: (As Eddie) May, I'm trying to take care of you, all right?

ARIANDA: (As May) No, you're not. You're just guilty. You're gutless and guilty.

ROCKWELL: (As Eddie) Good combination.

ULABY: It was easy to imagine Shepard playing one of his own earthy, craggy characters. But Shepard said he never liked to act in his own plays.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

SHEPARD: It seems like the height of vanity to me, acting¹¹ and writing and - you know what I mean? Just - it's embarrassing.

ULABY: Shepard went on to write screenplays and act in dozens of movies, some good, some less so. In 1998, Shepard told NPR there was a reason he played tough, rugged¹² characters whose damage seeped¹³ through a hard-boiled veneer¹⁴.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SHEPARD: It's very difficult to escape your background, you know? And I don't think it's necessary to even try. More and more I start to think that it's necessary to see exactly what it is that you inherited on both ends of the stick - your timidity, your courage, your self-deceit and your honesty and all the rest of it. You know, it's necessary to include all of that in order to be able to accept oneself.

ULABY: Sam Shepard wrote 44 plays, books of short stories and a memoir¹⁵. He was 73 years old. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF KEOLA BEAMER'S "'IMI AU LA 'OE - INSTRUMENTAL")

1 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 virility   

n.雄劲，丈夫气

参考例句：

• He wanted his sons to become strong,virile,and athletic like himself.他希望他的儿子们能长得像他一样强壮、阳刚而又健美。
• He is a tall,virile man with rugged good looks.他是个身材高大、体魄健壮、相貌粗犷英俊的男子。

4 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

5 deception   

n.欺骗，欺诈；骗局，诡计

参考例句：

• He admitted conspiring to obtain property by deception.他承认曾与人合谋骗取财产。
• He was jailed for two years for fraud and deception.他因为诈骗和欺诈入狱服刑两年。

6 revival   

n.复兴，复苏，（精力、活力等的）重振

参考例句：

• The period saw a great revival in the wine trade.这一时期葡萄酒业出现了很大的复苏。
• He claimed the housing market was showing signs of a revival.他指出房地产市场正出现复苏的迹象。

7 vitriolic   

adj.硫酸的，尖刻的

参考例句：

• The newspaper launched a vitriolic attack on the president.这家报纸对总统发起了一场恶意的攻击。
• Vitriolic impurity is contained normally in the sewage that vitriolic factory discharges.硫酸厂排放的污水中通常含有硫酸杂质。

8 unnatural   

adj.不自然的；反常的

参考例句：

• Did her behaviour seem unnatural in any way?她有任何反常表现吗？
• She has an unnatural smile on her face.她脸上挂着做作的微笑。

9 troupe   

n.剧团，戏班；杂技团；马戏团

参考例句：

• The art troupe is always on the move in frontier guards.文工团常年在边防部队流动。
• The troupe produced a new play last night.剧团昨晚上演了一部新剧。

10 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。

11 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

12 rugged   

adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的

参考例句：

• Football players must be rugged.足球运动员必须健壮。
• The Rocky Mountains have rugged mountains and roads.落基山脉有崇山峻岭和崎岖不平的道路。

13 seeped   

v.（液体）渗( seep的过去式和过去分词 )；渗透；渗出；漏出

参考例句：

• The rain seeped through the roof. 雨水透过房顶渗透。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Icy air seeped in through the paper and the room became cold. 寒气透过了糊窗纸。屋里骤然冷起来。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

14 veneer   

n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰

参考例句：

• For the first time her veneer of politeness began to crack.她温文尔雅的外表第一次露出破绽。
• The panel had a veneer of gold and ivory.这木板上面镶饰了一层金和象牙。

15 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。