SOURCE: ";Sam Shepard: Theatrical Power and American Dreams,"; in Modern Drama, Vol. XXX, No. 1, March, 1987, pp. 58-71.

In the following essay, Rabillard notes the marked difference between Shepard's abstract early plays and his more realistic later work The critic finds, however, that both styles are explorations of theatricality that exert a powerful hold on audiences and draw attention to the dramatic act.

The plays of Sam Shepard present some peculiar difficulties. There appears to be a wide split between the early and the later works, one that Shepard himself acknowledges. In an interview published in 1974 [in Theatre Quarterly IV, No. 15 (August-October 1974)], he announced that he was now trying for less flash and fewer mythic figures; in 1980 he told Robert Coe [in New York Times Magazine, (23 November)] mat, although he had thought character a ";corny idea,"; he was now becoming interested in it ";on a big scale";; True West...