No dramatist in the recent history of the American theatre has gained more celebrity than Sam Shepard. Exploring a career that includes fifty stage and screen plays, four books of nondramatic writings, and over a dozen appearances in feature films, this work traces Shepard's rise from an Off-Off-Broadway renegade to a Hollywood leading man, and explores his evolution from counterculture to cultural icon. The study situates Shepard's career within the shifting production modes and economic contexts of the American entertainment industry, and views his popularity against the identity politics of postwar American culture. Through an analysis of his life, plays and screen roles, this book investigates how Shepard's dramatic voice and film persona address issues of American consensus and community. The study argues that Shepard's popularity—in an era of cultural diversification and dissent—owes much to nationalism and nostalgia and begs important questions concerning American myths, media representations, and the construction of an American audience.
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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Everyone seems to understand a piece of Sam Shepard--macho movie actor, off-Broadway revolutionary, reclusive horse breeder, Dean of American Playwrights--but assembling these personas into a coherent individual would daunt the bravest of biographers. Leslie A. Wade, a University of Louisiana associate theater professor, strives to chart Shepard's obsessions and writing phases and to put them in context, both with Shepard's personal life and with the America he supposedly embodies. Wade's dry style sometimes poorly serves the passionate subject matter, but he provides new Shepard fans with perspective and plot summaries that are superior to all previous efforts. The full-blooded Shepard biography is still waiting to be written, but this vigorous attempt may well serve as its outline.
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?Undergraduates with no knowledge of Shepard, his plays, or the culture of the Unted States from the sixties through much of the nineties will find the narrative extremely easy to follow. The notes listed at the end of each chapter are quite thorough and will lead students to most of the major studies of Shepard's work to date. The Chronology, Further Reading list, and the Index all provide easy access to discussions of individual plays, significant moments in Shepard's life and the major historical events and trends that inform the plays....Wade's book will be useful in introductory college courses.?-Modern Drama
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First Sentence:
In his attempt to classify Sam Shepard, the critic Paul Berman distinguishes between those American writers who represent civilization and refinement- Henry James, for example-and those "naturalists" and "half-baked mystics'' who write with abandon, of impulse and inspiration, like Walt Whitman. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
counterculture theatre, beast bait, cowboy mouth, buried child, regional theatre, conceptual prison, commercial theatre, unseen hand Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Sam Shepard, Lie of the Mind, The Tooth of Crime, Off-Off Broadway, Curse of the Starving Class, Operation Sidewinder, Village Voice, Royal Court, United States, Bantam Books, Angel City, San Francisco, Horse Dreamer, Open Theatre, Magic Theatre, Public Theatre, Lincoln Center, Red Cross, American Place Theatre, Theatre Genesis, World War, African American, Greenwich Village, Living Theatre New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
In his attempt to classify Sam Shepard, the critic Paul Berman distinguishes between those American writers who represent civilization and refinement- Henry James, for example-and those "naturalists" and "half-baked mystics'' who write with abandon, of impulse and inspiration, like Walt Whitman. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
counterculture theatre, beast bait, cowboy mouth, buried child, regional theatre, conceptual prison, commercial theatre, unseen hand Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Sam Shepard, Lie of the Mind, The Tooth of Crime, Off-Off Broadway, Curse of the Starving Class, Operation Sidewinder, Village Voice, Royal Court, United States, Bantam Books, Angel City, San Francisco, Horse Dreamer, Open Theatre, Magic Theatre, Public Theatre, Lincoln Center, Red Cross, American Place Theatre, Theatre Genesis, World War, African American, Greenwich Village, Living Theatre New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
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13
books
cite this book:
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- Buried Child - Acting Edition by Sam Shepard on 21 pages
- Sam Shepard by Don Shewey on 11 pages
- Sam Shepard : Seven Plays (Buried Child, Curse of the Starving Class, The Tooth of Crime, La Turista, Tongues, Savage Love, True West) by Sam Shepard on 9 pages
- Motel Chronicles by Sam Shepard on 8 pages
- Sam Shepard (Twayne's United States Authors Series) by David J. Derose on 8 pages
See all 100 books this book cites
- Voltaire and the Theatre of the Eighteenth Century (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies: Lives of the Theatre) by Marvin A. Carlson in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Harold Pinter and the New British Theatre (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies: Lives of the Theatre) by D. Keith Peacock in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Sophocles and the Tragedy of Athenian Democracy (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies: Lives of the Theatre) by D. G. Beer in Front Matter
- Oscar Asche, Orientalism, and British Musical Comedy (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies: Lives of the Theatre) by Brian Singleton in Front Matter
- The Theatre Team: Playwright, Producer, Director, Designers, and Actors (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies) by Sidney Berger in Front Matter
See all 13 books citing this book
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