About the Play:

HARD TO FIND BOOK, only a very limited number of copies are still available.

States of Shock is a full-length drama by Sam Shepard. A wild and scathing anti-war play whose characters embody the conflicts and violent contradictions of America today. Set in a nondescript family restaurant, with bad service and raging customers, the stage becomes a battlefield for America's strident efforts to define itself. Before the action is over, Sam Shepard's anti-war message is not merely confined to Vietnam, but also encompasses the local wars of modern life between sexes, races, families and ideals.

States of Shock is set in a diner somewhere in America. The evening begins with a bang and a bizarre anniversary party turns into a grisly yet hilarious reopening of the wounds of war, sex, and family betrayal. The deceptive calm of a family restaurant, filled with two disgruntled customers and an inept waitress, is disrupted by offstage sounds of war and destruction. The real disruption begins with the entrance of the Colonel, a middle-aged brute of a man wearing the medals and uniform of a commander, who wheels on Stubbs, a mute paraplegic veteran who served with the Colonel's son. According to the Colonel, they have come "to toast the death of my son and have a nice dessert." While the customers, named only White Man and White Woman, and the waitress, Glory Bee, watch, the Colonel dominates and tyrannizes the stage. Stubbs slowly regains the power of speech and memory, and the tables turn when he reveals his enormous battle scar and hints that he is the Colonel's son. In increasingly bizarre and violent scenes, including a whipping and a food fight, States of Shock reaches its shattering conclusion.

States of Shock premiered in 1991 off-Broadway at the American Place Theater in the Hells Kitchen neighbourhood of New York City. Its UK premiere was in 1993 at the Salisbury Playhouse in the city of Salisbury in Wiltshire, southwest of London. Revived in 2004 in both London and New York, the play has been performed in regional and college theatre productions.

Cast: 2 female, 3 male

What people say:

"States of Shock is written with the earnest … conviction that the stage is still an effective platform for political dissent and mobilizing public opinion." — New York Times

"Shepard has Harold Pinter's absurdest gift for seeing the comic possibilities of inexplicablility while still linking them to unnamed horror." — New York Post

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.