SOURCE: ";Buried Child, "; in Sam Shepard, Arthur Kopit, and the Off Broadway Theatre, Twayne Publishers, 1982, pp. 53-61.

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 of hope at the conclusion of the drama.

The Theme Restated

One of Shepard's recurring themes is the decay of the American family, which can readily be seen as a synonym for the nonviability of today's American society. The playwright sounded this theme very early in his career in the one-act play Rock Garden, which he still considers among the best of his one-act plays. He treats the theme more fully in Curse of the Starving Class, which marks the next stage of development that culminates in Shepard's definitive treatment of the American family in Buried Child. The family plays are among...