Shepard’s Tale

Jeffrey Dorchen’s “The Slow and Painful Death of Sam Shepard,” the Zoo District’s current production at Sacred Fools Theatre, is a sprawling farce with a serious agenda. First produced in 1988, at the confluence of the Reagan-Bush administrations, Dorchen’s political parable uses the arc of Sam Shepard’s career, from punk playwright to rugged Hollywood icon, to poke fun at neo-conservatism, mindless nationalism and the nouveau American archetypes of the popular media.

If that sounds laborious, it’s not. With Bush fils in office, the time is ripe for a revival of Dorchen’s acid-etched leftist cartoon. Here, Dorchen’s archetype of choice is Sam Shepard--not the consummately cool playwright we have come to know, but a drawling Li’l Abner clone straight out of Dogpatch--or, in this case, Dogpatchville.

Raised in the shadows of the “Mountains of Madness,” Sam (Scott Anthony Young) is fed up with life in the shack he shares with Pappy (Loren J. Rubin) and his dim but steamy sister Elly May (Kelly Lynn Doherty). But when Sam flees to the big city in search of fame, he incurs Pappy’s curse, a curse that forces him to return periodically to his gothic homestead, where a dark destiny awaits him.

The first time Sam returns, with singer Patti Smith (Tamar Fortgang) in tow, he is riding high on his success as a playwright. On his second visit, he is accompanied by Tom Wolfe (Patrick Towne), whose novel “The Right Stuff” has just been filmed, with Sam as star.

Apart from these few recognizable characters and allusions, don’t expect a chronological retrospective of Shepard’s life. The plot is almost indescribably bizarre, a crazy quilt of tall tales and cutting-edge absurdism that sends up theatrical styles from John Steinbeck to Tennessee Williams to Shepard himself.

Unfortunately, the play is a good hour too long, but director Bill Cusack and his capable cast rein in Dorchen’s engaging but undisciplined yarn with assured humor. Particularly hilarious are Fortgang, whose twitchy, hollow-eyed Smith vacillates between nervous breakdown and spiritual epiphany, and Rubin, whose corn-pone character gets a huge laugh warbling lyrics like “When the hair of the field is white with death, dance and burn.” Now, that’s acting.

Aaron Francis and Ben Simonetti are credited with the production design, which includes Cecil Schmidt’s comic strip set, Kara Feely’s colorful costumes, and a driving bluegrass sound design by Jef Bek and J Warner. A live band sets the pace, and the show’s cheesy effects peak when the cardboard mountains part to reveal--but some things are better left to the imagination.

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* “The Slow and Painful Death of Sam Shepard,” Sacred Fools Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Drive, L.A. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 7 p.m. Ends June 10. $20. (323) 769-5674. Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes.