States of Shock, Far North, and Silent Tongue

Sam Shepard's works for theater and film tear through the envelope between prose and poetry; between pop culture and myth; between external reality and the deep reservoir of America's dreams and nightmares. In Shepard's States of Shock, a nostalgic colonel and his mutilated guest celebrate a bizarre anniversary--and in the process reopen the wounds of war, sexuality, and familial. The screenplay Far North looks fondly and sadly across the gap of gender and generation. In the screenplay Silent Tongue Shepard turns the history of the white presence on the frontier into something resembling Greek tragedy, with two half-Kiowa sisters filling the roles of sacrificial victim and implacably avenging fury.

"One of our best and most challenging playwrights...His plays are a form of exorcism: magical, sometimes surreal rituals that grapple with demonic forces in the American landscape."--Newsweek.