Description
The first book to provide a scholarly analysis of Shepard's later work, covering not just his drama, but also his short prose, films, screenplays and performances, from 1988 up until his death in 2017.
About the Author
Shannon Blake Skelton teaches at Kansas State University, USA.
Reviews
The best chapter charts all the echoes of Shepard's biography, media persona and actual writings in the variety of film and television roles he has played since his Oscar-nominated turn as Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff ... [Skelton] is also good on Shepard's cultural status. * Times Literary Supplement *
Shannon Skelton has produced an excellent, insightful, and unique study of the later plays of Sam Shepard. This is an intelligent book, one that is essential for anyone interested in Sam Shepard and the contemporary stage. -- Matthew Roudane, Georgia State University, USA
Skelton's The Late Work of Sam Shepard addresses a lacuna in Shepard scholarship. Most of the critical attention given to Shepard's work centers on his early productions, and the playwright's waning popularity has certainly contributed to this lack of attention. Skelton (Kansas State Univ.) examines nine works written since 1988, looking at how Shepard's later style reveals, as she writes in the introduction, "a maturing of the Shepard persona" and a willingness to explore "different media, subjects, and aesthetics and ... to pose solutions to dilemmas previously considered yet never resolved." Skelton examines both the intertextual and the transmedial ("a mode of storytelling that transcends one medium and develops on various platforms") qualities of these works. A key feature of the later works is the ability of characters to resolve issues and concerns raised in earlier works: as an example, Skelton compares The Late Henry Moss (2002) with True West (1980), looking at how the later work solves the issues of personal conflict left unresolved in the earlier play. Offering a range of critical approaches and exhibiting scholarly sophistication, this is an intelligent, overdue contribution to the literature on Shepard. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. * CHOICE *
Book Information
ISBN 9781350035607
Author Shannon Blake Skelton
Format Paperback
Page Count 272
Imprint Methuen Drama
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 350g