"The lamb is back in the kitchen in a fence enclosure. Weston is talking to the lamb. "No lamb has had it any better. It’s warm and free of draft, now that I got the new door up. No coyotes. No eagles. Should I tell ya something about eagles? True story? Once I was out in the fields doing the castrating, it’s not my favorite job. I had maybe dozen-spring ram lambs to do. I had ‘em all gathered up away from the ewes. It was a crisp, bright type a’ morning. Air was real thin and you could see all the way across the pastureland. Frost was still right close to the ground. I was working away when I feel this shadow cross over me. I could feel it even before I saw it take shape on the ground. Huge and black and cold like. I look up; half expecting a buzzard or maybe a red-tail, but what hits me across the eyes is this giant eagle. Now I’m a flyer and I’m used to aeronautics, but this sucker was doin’ some downright suicidal antics. Real low down like he’s coming in for a landing. I watch him for a while then turn back to my work. I do a couple more lambs and the same thing happens. Except he was lower this time. Like I could almost feel his feathers on my back. Then up he went again. I watched him longer this time and I figure out his intentions. He was after those testes. Those fresh little remnants of manlihood. I decided to oblige him and threw a few a’ them on top a’ the shed roof. I just went back to my work again pretending to be preoccupied. I was waitin’ for him this time. I was listening hard and watchin’ the ground for any sign of blackness. Nothing happened for about three more lambs. All of a sudden he comes like a thunder clap. Blam! He’s down on the shed roof with his talons taking half the tar paper with him, wings whippin’ the air, screaming like a bred mare then climbing straight back up into the sky again. I started yellin’ my head off. I don’t know how it was coming outa’ of me but I was standing there with this icy feeling up my backbone and just yelling my fool head off. Cheerin’ for that eagle. I’d never felt like that since my first day I went up in a B-49. Every time I cut a lamb I’d throw those balls up on the shed roof. And every time he’d come down like the Cannonball Express on that roof. And every time I got that feeling."
While Shepard's writing prowess and influence is undeniable, there's something holding me back from these dramatic works. What I see as his biggest flaw is his inability (or rather, outright refusal) to make relatable or realistic characters. Realizing the context of his pieces in tandem with the rise of absurdist and avant-garde theater in the sixties, it's easy to rationalize these exaggerated portrayals of uniquely American caricatures. Still, aside from the brothers in True West, and perhaps (by a stretch) the father in Curse of the Starving Class, Shepard's characters are so detached and unstable that the plays do not instill any catharsis within the reader, and stumble about awkwardly when little glimpses of honesty or poetic monologues are interspersed.Likewise, Savage Love and Tongues, while being pieces that especially require performance to understand, read in such a vague and heavy-handed manner. The former, in all its attempts to relate to the audience, has an opposite effect of the plays--even inducing laughter and cringes at some disturbingly generic lines.Still, Shepard is clearly a more than competent playwright, succeeding mainly when his focus is on the complexity of familial relationships between individuals who cannot, or will not, have faith in one another.
These plays were--um, I don't even know how best to describe them because when I'd finished reading them, I was unsure what Shepard's intent really was. Buried Child was just completely uncomfortable and depressing. I can appreciate that there was an attempt to provide a commentary on frustrations with the American dream, disillusionment, and dynamics of a fractured family, but he didn't sell it in any form that was engaging or even mildly entertaining. However, this play won a Pulitzer, so what do I know?? :)
—Sara
Sam Shepard is a fantastic playwright! My favorite out of these plays was definitely "Curse of the Starving Class." This play follows a dysfunctional family consisting of an ever-drunk father, his erratic and unreliable wife, an irresponsible son, an ambitious pretentious teenage daughter, and their sick goat. Like most of Shepard's plays, "Curse of the Starving Class" deals a lot with the idea of the west, and how achievable the American dream really is. What begins as a comical, somewhat racy family scene twists into a poignant, engaging drama. Not to mention a completely unexpected ending. I recommend this play to anyone, because it is very readable and relatable.
—Anya
Sam Shephard is a living classic. That being said, this collection is a bit hit or miss for me. Personally, I thought Buried Child, True West, and Curse of the Starving Class were the high points. As for the others, they aren't so much low points as they are simply different, avant garde, or absurdist (in the theatrical sense of the term), and, generally speaking, a bit odd. For instance, The Tooth of Crime is essentially a hiphop musical that, it seems, just tries a bit too hard; La Turista opens with a promising scene, then devolves into a silly, almost non-sensical absurdist piece; Savage Love is poetry, which is extremely difficult to pull off on the stage, and, having both seen and read this one, I can say that it isn't my favorite; and Tongues is really a borderline Beckettian performance art experiment, and I say that with as much respect as I can for someone as brilliant as Shepard. Each play is certainly worth a read or a trip to the theatre, but, caveat lector, in my opinion, they aren't all his best work.
—Neal
