Learning From The Plays Of Sam Shepard
It’s a sweltering night in a modest Southern Californian home. The sound of coyotes and crickets penetrate the small kitchen as two brothers awkwardly reunite in their mother’s house.
One, an ivy league graduate, has come for some peace to work on a screenplay for a Hollywood studio; the other has come looking for homes to rob. One is the picture of the American dream, the other an outcast living on the fringe. Two different realities, both feeling like imposters.
Nearby, on the edge of the Mojave desert, two lovers and the ghost of an old man meet in a less promising setting, a stark, low-rent motel room for an evening of feisty confrontation.
These are just two worlds found in the plays of Sam Shepard.
The first, True West, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1983. The second, Fool For Love, premiered in 1984, was a finalist for the Pulitzer and made into a film in 1985.
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard arrived in New York City in 1963 with no training, no fancy degree in playwriting, no producer at the helm. Just a case full of emotional baggage that a 19-year-old runaway is likely to have.
