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University of South Carolina Press - James A. Crank

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100 pages

English

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An ideal introduction into the complex and compelling dramas of the acclaimed playwright

Understanding Sam Shepard investigates the notoriously complex and confusing dramatic world of Sam Shepard, one of America's most prolific, thoughtful, and challenging contemporary playwrights. During his nearly fifty-year career as a writer, actor, director, and producer, Shepard has consistently focused his work on the ever-changing American cultural landscape. James A. Crank's comprehensive study of Shepard offers scholars and students of the dramatist a means of understanding Shephard's frequent experimentation with language, setting, characters, and theme.

Beginning with a brief biography of Shepard, Crank shows how experiences in Shepard's life eventually resonate in his work by exploring the major themes, unique style, and history of Shepard's productions. Focusing first on Shepard's early plays, which showcase highly experimental, frenetic explorations of fractured worlds, Crank discusses how the techniques from these works evolve and translate into the major works in his "family trilogy": Curse of the Starving Class, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child, and True West. Shepard often uses elements from his past—his relationship with his father, his struggle for control within the family, and the breakdown of the suburban American dream—as major starting points in his plays.

Shepard is a recipient of a Pulitzer Prize for Drama, eleven Obie Awards, and a Chicago Tribune Literary Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Augmented with an extensive bibliography, Understanding Sam Shepard is an ideal point of entrance into complex and compelling dramas of this acclaimed playwright.

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Publié par	University of South Carolina Press
Date de parution	31 octobre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781611171877
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,1100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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© 2012 University of South Carolina
Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Crank, James A.
Understanding Sam Shepard / James A. Crank.
p. cm. (Understanding contemporary American literature)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-61117-106-8 (cloth)
1. Shepard, Sam, 1943– Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
PS3569.H394Z668 2012
812'.54 dc23
2012021977
ISBN 978-1-61117-187-7 (ebook)
For Jeff, my anchor
CONTENTS
Series Editor’s Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Understanding Sam Shepard
Chapter 2 Experimentations with Sound, Language, and Myth: The Early Plays, 1964–1976
Chapter 3 Divining the Cure: Curse of the Starving Class
Chapter 4 Hidden Trespasses: Buried Child
Chapter 5 The Authentic Family: True West
Chapter 6 Chaos and Connection: The Later Works, 1983–2009
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE
The Understanding Contemporary American Literature series was founded by the estimable Matthew J. Bruccoli (1931–2008), who envisioned these volumes as guides or companions for students as well as good nonacademic readers, a legacy which will continue as new volumes are developed to fill in gaps among the nearly one hundred series volumes published to date and to embrace a host of new writers only now making their marks on our literature.
As Professor Bruccoli explained in his preface to the volumes he edited, because much influential contemporary literature makes special demands, “the word understanding in the titles was chosen deliberately. Many willing readers lack an adequate understanding of how contemporary literature works; that is, of what the author is attempting to express and the means by which it is conveyed.” Aimed at fostering this understanding of good literature and good writers, the criticism and analysis in the series provide instruction in how to read certain contemporary writers explicating their material, language, structures, themes, and perspectives and facilitate a more profitable experience of the works under discussion.
In the twenty-first century Professor Bruccoli’s prescience gives us an avenue to publish expert critiques of significant contemporary American writing. The series continues to map the literary landscape, and provide both instruction and enjoyment. Future volumes will seek to introduce new voices alongside canonized favorites, to chronicle the changing literature of our times, and to remain, as Professor Bruccoli conceived, contemporary in the best sense of the word.
Linda Wagner-Martin, Series Editor
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am most thankful to Linda Wagner-Martin, whose guidance of this manuscript from first inception through final product is indicative of the generosity and kind spirit I grew to admire so much during my time in Chapel Hill. Her advice and mentorship have meant more to me than I can possibly articulate. I am lucky to have been her student and even luckier to now be her friend.
Thanks, too, must go to my family, friends, and colleagues at Northwestern State University for their consistent support throughout the run of this manuscript. Special thanks go to Jackie M. Hawkins and the staff at Watson Library and to those who helped with this manuscript, from copyediting to reformatting to offering suggestions: Phyllis Agnew, Jeff Ware, Linda Angell, Bruce E. Ford, Barry Schwarz, Julie Kane, Mack Fritch, and others, you have my heartfelt gratitude. Your work is much appreciated.
My sincere appreciation also must go to my editor, Jim Denton. His help in key places throughout this volume was invaluable.
UNDERSTANDING SAM SHEPARD
CHAPTER 1
Understanding Sam Shepard
“It seems that the more you write, the harder it gets, because you’re not so easily fooled by yourself anymore,” wrote Sam Shepard. “Even so, writing becomes more and more interesting as you go along, and it starts to open up some of its secrets. One thing I’m sure of, though. That I’ll never get to the bottom of it.” 1 In writing about his process of composition, dramatist Sam Shepard expressed the central ideas of his plays: exposing secrets, opening up hidden spaces to understand one’s identity, and searching endlessly for satisfying conclusions. His plays investigate complicated worlds that seem to deepen with each new performance. For the uninitiated, his work may appear dense and rough: characters in his plays may speak, act, or move spontaneously and illogically. Shepard’s language, including his copious stage directions, can seem stylized and needlessly complex; his dialogue is alternately lyrical and elaborate without context or exposition; and his realistic characters frequently interact unexpectedly and inexplicably with imaginary figures. Consequently he may frustrate readers more used to linear plots and realistic characters. Sam Shepard is, in short, a difficult playwright to understand.
But scholars, students, directors, actors, and dramaturges who approach the man and his work thoughtfully discover an incredibly rewarding and focused vision, one that has enthralled audiences and critics alike since his plays first exploded onto stages in New York during the 1960s. During his nearly fifty-year career, Sam Shepard’s work has consistently documented the ever-changing cultural landscape of America: from its obsessions with rock ’n’ roll and a mythic West to the realities of its class consciousness and broken families. He frequently challenges Americans’ self-perceptions by exposing lies and secrets inherent in them, and his plays reexamine solved mysteries of the theatrical world language, form, myth, narration, spectator, character and defy audiences’ expectations by violating their conventions.
Now, nearly a half century after the premiere of his first play, Sam Shepard still remains at the forefront of the American theatrical scene as one of our most prolific, thoughtful, and challenging living playwrights. Shepard has written nearly fifty plays while thriving as an actor, director, and producer for the stage, television, and cinema. Theater critics have proclaimed him “the most ruthlessly experimental and uncompromising” American playwright and “the greatest American playwright of his generation.” His plays articulate America’s anxieties and fears during very specific historical and cultural moments. Yet, like the works of the great American playwrights before him, Shepard’s plays find new audiences in successive generations. They are admired by scholars and actors alike. Literary critics admire the structure of his works, and some of the finest stage and screen actors, including John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, and Kathy Bates, have been eager to play parts in them because the emotional evolution of his characters provides opportunities for experimentation.
Although watching a Sam Shepard play is engaging, reading his plays for the first time may prove daunting. Because Shepard is clearly influenced by the theater of the absurd dramatists (such as Pirandello, Beckett, and Ionesco), his work can seem dense and incomprehensible to first-time readers without an understanding of absurdist techniques. This study introduces scholars, students, and directors to the challenging issues taken up in Shepard’s plays, including experiments with language, setting, and characters. One key to understanding the works of Sam Shepard is his life. To a greater degree t