Johan Callens Knihy

This volume, the second of two, contains the proceedings of the Shepard conference organized in Brussels, 28-30 May 1993, by the Belgian-Luxembourg American Studies Association and the Free University of Brussels.

This is the first collection of critical essays to appear about the Wooster Group. Since the 1970s this groundbreaking, New York-based performance company has led the way in crystallizing the conditions of contemporary stage practice at the intersection of several cultural and artistic traditions. As demonstrated by the assembled critics, each of them an authority in the field, these traditions extend into the past as well as into the future, through the Wooster Group’s impact on the latest generation of performance artists. The company’s consequent institutionalization is posited and challenged in the essays constituting Part I of the collection. Part II tackles the work-in-progress, mapping its idiomatic stage vocabulary and providing case studies, ranging from Frank Dell’s The Temptation of St. Antony to To You, The Birdie! (Phèdre ). Part III presents productions by kindred artists such as Elevator Repair Service, the Builders Association, Cannon Company, and Richard Maxwell. Lavishly illustrated with photographs, this collection should prove invaluable to anyone with an interest in the current theatrical scene and its place in the wider institutional, artistic, and historical contexts.

This illustrated volume covers the career of Sam Shepard, the provocative American playwright, scriptwriter, actor, and director, through an introductory survey followed by in-depth analyses of representative selections from the one-acts ( Action, States of Shock ), experimental collaborations with Joseph Chaikin ( Savage/Love ), and by now classic family plays ( Buried Child, A Lie of the Mind ). It ranges from Shepard’s unpublished adaptation of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus through the textual variants and political context of Operation Sidewinder to Robert Altman’s movie version of Fool for Love , besides offering brief comparisons with fellow dramatists (Albee and Beckett) and visual artists (Edward Weston, Marsden Hartley). Several performance analyses supplement the textual criticism and provide a sample of European directorial approaches. Together, these takes offer a composite picture of an artist whose output over the past forty years has turned him into a figurehead of twentieth century drama, studied and produced all over the world with a keen eye for his idiosyncratic and critical view of what it means to be American.