Defusion of Menace in the Plays of Sam Shepard

Abstract

FOR SEVERAL YEARS Sam Shepard has been acknowledged as the most talented and promising playwright to emerge from the Off-off Broadway movement. Now, more than a decade after his work was first performed, he is increasingly recognized as one of the more significant dramatists in the English-speaking world. Praised by Edward Albee and Elizabeth Hardwick, he has been called "One of the three or four most gifted playwrights alive" and "the most talented of his generation." Catherine Hughes rightfully acknowledges that "there is no young American playwright who can match Shepard in his ability to employ language." Ren Frutkin in an article in Yale Theatre asserts that "he has brought the word back into the theatre," and London director Kenneth Chubb believes that Shepard's "perspective on his material has a relevance and universality that earmarks great writers." Granted the tendency of some reviewers to exaggerate in the enthusiasm of the moment, the body of positive opinion regarding Shepard's work is impressive. At least twenty- seven of his plays have been performed, not only in the United States and the United Kingdom, but in Canada and Australia as well. At least twelve plays have been performed in London alone, where he has been living for the past four years. Nineteen of his plays, as well as a book of poetry and prose, are in published form, and he has several screenplays to his credit.