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Stanford University.
I didn't know you owned land in the desert. Speaker: Of course I do. I got an acre and a half out there. Speaker: Sam
Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class was written in the mid 70s. Speaker: Some guy came
to the door selling land so I bought some. In it's day, it was considered a
breakthrough play for Shepard in which he seems to go after the great themes in
American theatre. Family, domestic tragedy, the breakdown of the home, the
idea of the American dream. Speaker: She sees him as an easy ticket.
She doesn't want to be stuck out here in the boonies all her life.
Speaker: The play is set in a form in Southern California on the verge of development taking over. Speaker: All kind of
great things were going to be developed out there. Golf courses, the shopping centers,
banks. Speaker: The characters on there are corky and wild and weird and funny and wacky.
Taylor is the head zombie. He's just ah, the scout for the other zombies. Speaker: But
the situation is not so funny. The situation is one of struggling to hold on to
a home. Speaker: I don't know. Speaker: Don't pull that. Don't pull that when I need that, I
don't know that. Speaker: One of the reasons, we wanted to know it now is because it was
prophetic particularly in terms of dealing with issues of land, ownership, debt,
speculation, bank repossessions, the struggle of the little guy to hold on to
his little bit of American dream. Speaker: I wouldn't sell it. Speaker: He wouldn't sell it. He
couldn't sell it. It's not yours. Speaker: I know. But I wouldn't sell it if it was.
For my blood, it's the best Shepard play.Speaker: I found a buyer. I found someone to
give me cash. Cash on light. [sound]. >>Good, can we do it one more time?
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