Conversations with Sam Shepard

by Jackson R. Bryer (Editor), Robert M. Dowling (Editor), Mary C. Hartig (Editor)

A prolific playwright, Sam Shepard (1943–2017) wrote fifty-six produced plays, for which he won many awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. He was also a compelling, Oscar-nominated film actor, appearing in scores of films. Shepard also published eight books of prose and poetry and was a director (directing the premiere productions of ten of his plays as well as two films); a musician (a drummer in three rock bands); a horseman; and a plain-spoken intellectual. The famously private Shepard gave a significant number of interviews over the course of his public life, and the interviewers who respected his boundaries found him to be generous with his time and forthcoming on a wide range of topics. The selected interviews in Conversations with Sam Shepard begin in 1969 when Shepard, already a multiple Obie winner, was twenty-six and end in 2016, eighteen months before his death from complications of ALS at age seventy-three. In the interim, the voice, the writer, and the man evolved, but there are themes that echo throughout these the indelibility of family; his respect for stage acting versus what he saw as far easier film acting; and the importance of music to his work. He also speaks candidly of his youth in California, his early days as a playwright in New York City, his professionally formative time in London, his interests and influences, the mythology of the American Dream, his own plays, and more. In Conversations with Sam Shepard , the playwright reveals himself in his own words.

326 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2021

About the author

Dr. Jackson R. Bryer is a Professor Emeritus of the University of Maryland's Department of English, who has also worked with the Department of Theatre as an affiliate faculty member and literary advisor.

Reviews

[Harry O · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cool source of inspiration. You don’t need to read Sam’s plays or books to get lost in all the interview topics. He really never held back on anything. He spoke better off the top of his head than most people sitting down to write what they want to say.

Some good quotes:

RG: “A critic once described your writing as a search for lost innocence.”

SS: “I don’t think you can regain the innocence you’ve lost, but you can maybe find a new innocence. Only in the moments, though, when suddenly everything seems miraculous. For instance, I drive this freeway that cuts through the geography of these valleys. As you’re driving along, you’re daydreaming, going through all kinds of inner monologues, inner dialogues, and you’re not aware of what’s happening around you. All of a sudden, you go into a pocket or a little valley and the air radically changes—it becomes warm and smells different. When this happens, suddenly you feel as though it were a new moment, and it shocks you into the fact that you’re alive. Those are the moments when the innocence presents itself.”

MG: “Is it true? Life is what’s happening to you while you’re making plans for something else?”

SS: “I think it’s very true to a large extent. We tend to become engaged in the future, particularly when you’re young. You’re always thinking about what’s ahead and the real meat and potatoes of life is passing by. I think that’s true. One of those homegrown things. The present doesn’t count. Only the future and the past.”

“I think there’s an obsessive…how would you call it? There’s a way in which particularly men-not women so much-I think men tend to obsess in their heads about certain things and go off and become very isolated, very estranged to the people who are very close to them. I think that’s a male characteristic more than a female. I don’t know why. It seems to me it is. I could be wrong.” - Sam Shepard

[Chris S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.