The Cambridge Companion to Sam Shepard

Few American playwrights have exerted as much influence on the contemporary stage as Sam Shepard. His plays are performed on and off Broadway and in all the major regional American theatres. They are also widely performed and studied in Europe, particularly in Britain, Germany and France, finding both a popular and scholarly audience. In this collection of seventeen original essays, American and European authors from different professional and academic backgrounds explore the various aspects of Shepard's career - his plays, poetry, music, fiction, acting, directing and film work. The volume covers the major plays, including Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child, and True West, as well as other lesser known but vitally important works. A thorough chronology of Shepard's life and career, together with biographical chapters, a note from the legendary Joseph Chaikin, and an interview with the playwright, give a fascinating first-hand account of an exuberant and experimental personality.

ISBN 0521777666   Pages 352 ISBN13 9780521777667 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Cambridge University Press   Weight (grammes) 562 Imprint Cambridge University Press   Published in Cambridge Format Paperback   Series title Cambridge Companions to Literature Publication date 27 May 2002   Height (mm) 228 Writer of introduction Roudan, Matthew   Width (mm) 152 Library of Congress PS3569.H394 Z65 2002   Spine width (mm) 23 DEWEY 812.54   Academic level Tertiary education, Professional / Scholarly DEWEY edition DC21

		Acknowledgments
		Notes on contributors
		Chronology
		Introduction by Matthew Roudane		1
1		Born injured: the theatre of Sam Shepard by Christopher Bigsby		7
2		Shepard and Off-Off-Broadway: the unseen hand of Theatre Genesis by Stephen J. Bottoms		34
3		Shepard on Shepard: an interview by Matthew Roudane		64
4		A note on Sam Shepard by Joseph Chaikin		81
5		Joseph Chaikin and Sam Shepard in collaboration by Marc Robinson		83
6		Repetition and regression in Curse of the Starving Class and Buried Child by Thomas P. Adler		111
7		Shepard writes about writing by Brenda Murphy		123
8		Reflections of the past in True West and A Lie of the Mind by Leslie Kane		139
9		Patriarchal pathology from The Holy Ghostly to Silent Tongue by Carla J. McDonough		154
10		The classic Western and Sam Shepard's family sagas by John M. Clum		171
11		European textures: adapting Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus by Johan Callens		189
12		Sam Shepard and the cinema by Kimball King		210
13		Sam Shepard as musical experimenter by David J. DeRose		227
14		Sam Shepard's nondramatic works by Ann C. Hall		247
15		States of Shock, Simpatico, and Eyes for Consuela: Sam Shepard's plays of the 1990s by Leslie A. Wade		257
16		Sam Shepard's The Late Henry Moss by Matthew Roudane		279
17		Sam Shepard: A bibliographic essay and production overview by Susan C. W. Abbotson		292
		Select bibliography		311
		More...

'... Matthew Roudane gathers an impressive array of American drama's A-team scholars ... he is a knowledgeable, sensitive, sensible, and thorough scholar ... Roudane's collection is the best book-length study of Shepard [and] is the best collection of scholarly essays on [American] drama this year.' James J. Martine, Drama

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