Buried Child Summary
Sam Shepard

Sam Shepard (Samuel Shepard Rogers VII; born 1943) began his career as a playwright in the lively off-off-Broadway scene of the 1960s and became one of the United States' most prolific and acclaimed d... Read more

November 5, 1943. Samuel "Steve" Shepard Rogers "...plunged into the world head first and, although covered with blood, my attitude was very friendly...."My name came down through seven generations of... Read more

Although Sam Shepard has written more than forty plays and five screenplays, including collaborating on Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point (1970) and Wim Wenders's Paris, Texas (1984); has direc... Read more

Buried Child was presented in New York City at the Theatre for the New City in November, 1978, and went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979. Clurman, a highly regarded director, educato... Read more

In the following essay, Auerbach, an educator and critic, offers an interpretation of Buried Child, stressing the play's discouraging message of lost American promise, yet also noting a sense o... Read more

Critical Essay by John Simon [The plot of Buried Child] is a little too reminiscent of Pinter's The Homecoming. The funny, bitchy family infighting may owe something also to Edward Albee. The m... Read more