SOURCE: Smith, Susan Harris. “Trying to Like Sam Shepard: Or, the Emperor's New Dungarees.” Contemporary Theatre Review 8, no. 3 (1998): 31-40.

In the following essay, Smith assesses Shepard's current problematic critical reception, accounting for his early acclaim and his subsequently diminished reputation.

When Eric Bentley tackled the problem of Eugene O'Neill's prominence, popularity and decline in his testy essay, “Trying to Like O'Neill”, in 1952, he began with a curse: “It would be nice to like O'Neill. He is the leading American playwright; damn him, damn all; and in damning all is a big responsibility. It is tempting to damn all the rest and make of O'Neill an exception. He is an exception in so many ways”. Commending O'Neill for his reticence, self-respect and independence from commercial pressure, Bentley wrote, “In a theatre, which chiefly attracts idiots and crooks he was a model of good sense and honor” (331).

Bentley attributed O'Neill's...