The Unseen Hand is a hallucination based on fact—a compound of nostalgia and celebration in the face of the more tawdry elements of American life—which draws its energy from a compost heap, the flamboyant vulgarity of California culture.

Partly observed, partly absorbed, the characters of the play are a weird blending of authentic types and media constructs….

Shepard's approach is simply to place these disparate characters against a contemporary landscape, and let them work upon each other….

[Shepard] continues to confront American popular culture with a kind of manic exuberance—not exalting its every wart and pimple, like Andy Warhol, but nevertheless considerably turned on, like many of his generation, even by its more brutalized expressions. In a degenerate time, this may be a strategy for survival, and it certainly sparks the energy of The Unseen Hand; but I miss that quality of aloofness that would...