SOURCE: ";The Tooth of Crime: Sam Shepard's Way with Music,"; in Modern Drama, Vol. XXIV, No. 1, March, 1981, pp. 13-25.

In the following excerpt, Powe discusses Shepard's use of music in The Tooth of Crime and the influence of rock music on some of the playwright's other works.

The Tooth of Crime is, at present, [Shepard's] ultimate rock 'n' roll play: ";A Play with Music … "; that articulates a vision of stars, styles and death. It is his Star Wars: a brilliant combination of western movie clichés, gangland rituals, organized sports, science fiction—in the future there will be no war, but there will be rock 'n' roll—and the star system in the pop world. (Interestingly, the whole last act of The Tooth of Crime is curiously reminiscent of an obscure western of the early seventies called A Gunfight, with Kirk Douglas and Johnny Cash. In that film...