Review: GEOGRAPHY OF A HORSE DREAMER at Imago Theatre

You’ll never dream the same again.

First premiered in London in 1974, Geography of a Horse Dreamer is one of Sam Shepard’s earlier and lesser-produced works. If you are not familiar with Sam Shepard, New York Magazine referred to him as one of the greatest American Playwrights of his generation. Although he passed in 2017, his award-winning works live on as timeless, gritty, bold, and mostly dark and abstract.

This play, Geography of a Horse Dreamer, is one of his lesser produced plays. Geography refers to physical settings, a longing for the old west, as well as the inner landscape of the human mind. You might find yourself asking - Is it a fever dream, a drug induced trip, or a hallucination? Shepard never answers that question but does invite your mind to wander.

Imago Theatre's production features Cody (Joe Cullen), as the Horse Dreamer, a young man who has dreams like all young men, but in his dreams he predicts the winners of horse races and when Gangster Boss Fingers (Diane Slamp) discovers his psychic ability she has him kidnapped and placed under the watch of two bumbling gangsters who find it hard to keep Cody from escaping. Santee (Sean Lujan) is tense and volatile.  Beaujo (Liam Gouldsbrough) a more sensitive and empathetic captor.  They have Cody shackled to a bed in a dingy hotel in an undisclosed location, where he speaks poetically about his longing for home, the great plains of Wyoming, and listening to his favorite record. His undesirable situation causes a psychic block and resulting inability to predict the actual winners of horse races renders him no longer valuable and in danger from Finger’s threats. But then as in any good dream, his mind shifts to dogs where he is much more successful at predicting the winners, going all in as he takes on the behaviors of a racing hound.

The gangsters move him to a posh hotel and remove the shackles as his reward, when Fingers shows up with the delightfully disturbing doctor (Duffy Epstein) who has a fancy for collecting dream bones. Chaos quickly ensues and you find yourself questioning if this really is all just a dream. An otherworldly room attendant (John Berendzen) glides in and out as though nothing is unusual, which heightens the sense that reality itself may be slipping.

The set design makes bold use of Imago’s full space, splitting the stage into two contrasting hotel rooms. Instead of moving scenery, the audience moves, physically shifting perspectives and deepening the surreal experience that keeps the world wonderfully off balance.

Geography of a Horse Dreamer wrestles with artistic value, exploitation, power, and control. Shepard blends comedy, noir, and speculative strangeness into a world where identity is fragile and dreams become currency. Director Jerry Mourawad lends his talent for surrealism and comedy to keep the audience curious about what comes next. The decision to reimagine the 1940s mob boss Fingers as a woman adds a charged layer of tension and reshapes the power dynamics in compelling ways.