Inner Landscapes: The Theater of Sam Shepard by Ron Mottram (review)

Reviews 163 ick’s book leaves one wondering why she undertook this study. Desert Passages is a fairly good introduction to its subject, but an individual wanting some­ thing more in-depth will have to look elsewhere. JIM ATON Southern Utah State College Inner Landscapes: The Theater of Sam Shepard. By Ron Mottram. (Colum­ bia: University of Missouri, 1984. 172 pages, $7.95.) “Within limits, all art is a kind of creative biography in which the author and his relation to the world are revealed,” writes Ron Mottram as he con­ cludes his eminently usable chronological study of the stage plays of Sam Shepard. Beginning with the earliest works and examining in turn the relative obscurity of the Off Off Broadway years, the growing influence of music upon Shepard, his departure to England in 1971, his return to America in 1974 and his subsequent development, Mottram argues for a more cohesive and unified reading than has been offered previously for the most perplexing voice in con­ temporary American theater. Rejecting the commonly held critical notion that Shepard appeals to the senses rather than to the mind, Mottram demon­ strates the complex language of culturally and theatrically coded signs which Shepard has evolved through the course of his career. This language has become the means, at once subtle and shocking, to explore an inner landscape which mirrors the simultaneous alienation and integration of the individual in American society. Mottram catches Shepard on the wing: “In Shepard, discontents and the desire to do something about them are approached more from a personal than a social perspective and are treated as psychological rather than political questions. Like a mythical cowboy hero, Shepard seems to opt for individual action and a willingness, if not a necessity, to go it alone.” Whether Shepard, through his antisocial cowboys, icons of popular culture, loners and misfits, will continue to go it alone or to confront their inherent contradictions may be answered by his future directions; meanwhile Mottram brings remarkable coherence to the tortuous complexities of Shepard’s inner landscape to date. MARY CLEARMAN BLEW Northern Montana College Museum Pieces. By Elizabeth Tallent. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. 233 pages, $14.95.) Set in Santa Fe, Museum Pieces details the relationship of Peter and Clarissa, parents of Tara, during the post-separation period. She is a painter ...