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This illustrated volume covers the career of Sam Shepard, the provocative American playwright, scriptwriter, actor, and director, through an introductory survey followed by in-depth analyses of representative selections from the one-acts (Action, States of Shock), experimental collaborations with Joseph Chaikin (Savage/Love), and by now classic family plays (Buried Child, A Lie of the Mind). It ranges from Shepard's unpublished adaptation of Marlowe's Doctor Faustus through the textual variants and political context of Operation Sidewinder to Robert Altman's movie version of Fool for Love, besides offering brief comparisons with fellow dramatists (Albee and Beckett) and visual artists (Edward Weston, Marsden Hartley). Several performance analyses supplement the textual criticism and provide a sample of European directorial approaches. Together, these takes offer a composite picture of an artist whose output over the past forty years has turned him into a figurehead of twentieth century drama, studied and produced all over the world with a keen eye for his idiosyncratic and critical view of what it means to be American.
List of contents
Contents: Portrait of the Artist as an Explorer - Memories of the Sea in Illinois - Epistemologies of Loss - Through the Windows of Perception - When I Read the Book - The Needs and Risks of Revision(ism) - Reciprocity and Transformational Generation - Published and Unpublished Wars - Diverting the Integrated Spectacle - European Textures - Inflections of Nostalgia - Bring the Family.
About the author
The Author: Johan Callens teaches at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. He is the author of
From Middleton and Rowley's «Changeling» to Sam Shepard's «Bodyguard»: A Contemporary Appropriation of a Renaissance Drama (1997) and editor of
Sam Shepard: Between the Margin and the Centre (1998, 2 vols.). For the Dramaturgies Series published by P.I.E. Peter Lang, he also edited the critical anthology
The Wooster Group and Its Traditions (2004).
Report
«Callens...is probably, among Shepard scholars, the most rigorous and meticulous in his analysis, which shows an impressive knowledge of both the American and the European literary traditions.»>
(Ana Fernández-Caparrós Turina, Documenta)
«Dis/Figuring Sam Shepard offers ample evidence of Johan Callens's talents as a scholar of American theatre and drama and reconfirms his status as one of Shepard's most astute critics writing today.»
(John S. Bak, Etudes Anglaises)
