Customer Reviews

A Body Across the Map (Artists and Issues in the Theatre)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

All of the great American playwrights, I find Shepard to be the most elusive. Unlike many of his predecessors, Shepard doesn't connnect all the dots; his characters don't stay put, his plots are slippery, and even his themes are sometimes difficult to pin down. Watching or reading a Shepard play is like living on a fault line--you never know when the ground will give way or where you'll finally end up. Which is why I so appreciated A BODY ACROSS THE MAP. It is cogent, well-written, and clarifies, without over-simplifying--some of the more mysterious aspects of Shepard's work. Also, by examining the father-son conflict in plays written over a twenty year span, it skillfully reveals how Shepard's view of the world, his ideas regarding masculinity, and his perceptions of women have substantially changed. I was particularly impressed by the author's analyses of THE TOOTH OF CRIME, TRUE WEST, and A LIE OF THE MIND.

Being a graduate theatre student, I've read almost all of Shepard's plays and a great deal of Shepard criticism, and consider this book to be among the most insightful. From the title, I expected a narrow examination of character and conflict. But, in fact, the book is much more than that. It also charts--in precise structural and thematic terms--Shepard's metamohposis from a purely instinctual (and "speed"-driven) young playwright to an iconoclastic storyteller in firm control of his craft. This is a book for both those who have only recently discovered Shepard's work and those (like myself) who thought that they had already cracked the code.