Shepard, Sam (Vol. 4) - Shepard, Sam 1943–
Shepard, Sam 1943–
An American dramatist and screenwriter, Shepard has forged a "theatre of the mythic West" from hillbilly language, late-night TV westerns, country and western music, and legend. Shepard's plays, according to one critic, are "words and sounds, and the lost American idioms."
Operation Sidewinder would be a great deal easier to talk about if I could dismiss it, as some reviewers did, as the self-indulgence of a precocious child or if I could celebrate it as a shattering statement about contemporary America. I can do neither. Sam Shepard has fascinated me ever since I first picked up a copy of Five Plays. He has a bizarre theatrical imagination, an ability to create workable dramatic turns which preclude any desire to dismiss him. Yet his plays seem designed to forestall any cumulative effect. His early one-acters—including the admirable Red Cross—are uneasy combinations of images—verbal and visual—but...
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