About the Play:

Seduced has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female/Male Scenes.

Seduced is a full-length drama by Sam Shepard. The story of an almost surreal Howard Hughes-like figure, a bearded recluse who is the richest man in the world. He is visited in his hideout by two female figures from his past, and the mogul begins to reflect on why his riches drove him mad. Seduced is an often comic and brilliantly revealing allegory about being seduced and abandoned by the American dream, the somewhat optimistic conviction that anyone could rise to the top if they worked hard enough.

Seduced is the story of a mad billionaire, a mysterious aide and two alluring women. Henry Hackamore, reputed to be the richest man in the world, is now a bearded, aged recluse, who lives on the top floor of a Caribbean luxury hotel, attended by his bodyguard-nurse, Raul. Paranoid, desperately lonely and obsessed by a fear of germs, he is kept alive by drugs and infusions of blood from other geniuses. Aware that his life is ebbing away, and determined to have one last fling, he flies in two women, Luna and Miami, whom he had known, and loved, in the past. They're both Vegas showgirl types, but while they are still attractive and vigorous, his energies are so drained that they can only talk of other times and other places. Entrapped by his delusions, Hackamore is a burnt-out case, a parody of the American Dream who, despite his limitless wealth and power, cannot forestall the inevitable decline into futility, boredom and an agonizingly lonely death. Seduced deals with many modern issues like income inequality and the feasibility of the American dream.

Seduced premiered in 1978 at Trinity Square Repertory Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island and was produced off-Broadway in 1979 at the American Place Theater in the Hells Kitchen neighbourhood of Manhattan in New York City. Since then the play enjoyed widespread acceptance among leading regional theatres. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been performed in college theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 2 male

What people say:

"Sam Shepard's play about an eccentric billionaire based on the late Howard Hughes is a quietly powerful and disturbing production." — Los Angeles Times

"Seduced is a beguiling visit to the monster at the end of the American Rainbow. Like a beautiful nightmare, it conjures feelings difficult to shake off." — Chicago Reader

"Shepard, the most prolific and gifted of our current playwrights, is also the most 'American.' He distills essential images from America's ambiguous energies and puts them onstage where they writhe and crackle like high-tension wires." — Newsweek

"…startling and fascinating bits of stage business, as the dramatist's imagination, which is as fertile as any in the theatre today, takes flight." — New York Magazine

"…a cat's cradle of mystery, intrigue and laughter." — New York Times

About the Playwright:

Sam Shepard (1943-2017) was an American playwright and actor. Born in Illinois and raised in Southern California, he worked as a farmhand and musician before moving to New York to begin his career as a playwright. The celebrated author – who New York Magazine called "the greatest American playwright of his generation" – wrote more than forty plays, eleven of which have won Obie Awards. His play Buried Child won the Pulitzer for drama. Two other plays True West and Fool for Love were nominated for the Pulitzers as well, and are frequently revived. As an actor he appeared in more than thirty films, including an Oscar nominated performance for his role as test pilot Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.