PLEY presents Sam Shepard's LITTLE OCEAN
Schedule
Fri Mar 27 2026 at 03:00 pm to 04:00 pm
UTC+00:00Location
The Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 3JP, UK | London, EN
About this Event
LITTLE OCEAN
A Rehearsed Reading
Sam Shepard wrote the short play Little Ocean in response to the needs of three of his women friends: to work and to talk about something essentially feminine - pregnancy.
Little Ocean was never published, but it ran very briefly late at night in 1974 at the Hampstead Theatre only a month after Sam Shepard had written it.
One of the original cast, Dinah Stabb recalls, "He wrote it about his wife O-Lan, who'd had a baby; me, who was about to have a baby, and Caroline [Hutchison, Stephen Rea’s then girlfriend], who hadn't had a baby. Because I was seven months' pregnant I couldn't really do anything, and O-Lan couldn't really work in this country. One day, he said, 'I'll write something for you.' So we all held our breath, crossed our fingers, and waited. It was extraordinary: it was written by a man, but it didn't feel like that. There's a beautiful speech at the end about what it feels like to give birth, about feeling like a big animal.
At Sam’s suggestion, Stephen Rea directed it, because, it seemed part of the nature of him, that it should be done by someone who was one of the group!”
This is the first time that Little Ocean has been read in public in the UK since it was originally produced in London in 1974. Hannah Shepard, Sam's daughter, is thrilled that the play is going to be read in public again.
Produced by Lesley Hutchison and Deborah Dickinson for PLEY (Proactive Learning From Early Years).
Sam Shepard, died on 27 July, 2017. He was an Illinois-born playwright, screenwriter, author, actor and director. He won a Pulitzer prize in 1979 for his play Buried Child, co-wrote the screenplay for Wim Wenders’s Paris, Texas, and was acclaimed for his roles in Days of Heaven and The Right Stuff.
“I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.” Sam Shepard.
There will be a Q&A with the cast after the Reading.
Where is it happening?
The Park Theatre, Clifton Terrace, Finsbury Park, London N4 3JP, UK, The Park Theatre, London, United KingdomEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 10.00
