This perceptive study analyzes Sam Shepard's thirty published playscripts from Chicago and Rock Garden to A Lie of the Mind and States of Shock - not as realistic dramas, but as fantastic satires. Using criteria forthe fantastic in literature developed by Tzetvan Todorov and Eric S. Rabkin - with corroborating commentary from Northrup Frye and Cedric Whitman - this study will prove valuable to literary scholars, as well as actors and directors.
"Of the many provocative critical approaches to Sam Shepard, Dr. McGhee's tripping of the dark fantasic in this study as a way into the playwright's almost hallucinatory transactions seems particularly illuminating and persuasive for an appreciation of him as an American master in theater and literature". (Edward T. Jones, York College of Pennsylvania)
"After reading this study, I appreciate Shepard's writing more fully. McGhee provides access to the work of this complex, perplexing, fascinating playwright. Highly usable for the director and actor". (Briant Hamor Lee, Bowling Green State University)
"After reading this study, I appreciate Shepard's writing more fully. McGhee provides access to the work of this complex, perplexing, fascinating playwright. Highly usable for the director and actor". (Briant Hamor Lee, Bowling Green State University)