Sam Shepard made stardom look easy — his demons got in the way

“Theater is simply a large bust,” Sam Shepard told Newsweek successful 1967, conscionable arsenic his prima was rising successful the off-Broadway world. “Nobody is taking large chances.” It was a bold connection for Shepard, who successful the years to travel tried to debar media attraction and often faced crises of confidence. But arsenic Robert M. Dowling demonstrates successful his Shepard biography, “Coyote,” the playwright was much than conscionable a survey successful contradictions — helium was a tangle of confusions, with his beingness shaped by vexation and nonaccomplishment and self-destruction arsenic overmuch arsenic occurrence connected the world’s stages and movie screens.

In Dowling’s hands, Shepard emerges arsenic an creator who became an EGOT-level endowment portion making it look easy. (He earned Oscar, Emmy, and Tony nominations, and won a boatload of Obies and a Pulitzer successful 1979 for “Buried Child.”) Born successful 1943, Shepard was raised successful the San Gabriel Valley by a two-fisted begetter with a clutch of World War II medals, the root of the playwright son’s lifelong obsession with American mightiness and masculinity. In the aboriginal ’60s, Shepard escaped to New York and with lightning velocity infiltrated off-Broadway, inspired by Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee and a big of experimental playwrights.

Was young Shepard immoderate good? Even Albee, 1 of his aboriginal mentors, said his archetypal scripts “give the content of being a mess.” His breakthrough experimental play, 1967’s “La Turista,” featured unrecorded on-stage chickenhearted decapitations until animal-rights activists took notice. When his enactment was staged for the uptown acceptable astatine Lincoln Center, seats emptied. But helium had the enactment of the intelligentsia astatine the New York Review of Books and Village Voice, and a theatre civilization that was consenting to accommodate him portion helium recovered his footing.

(Scribner)

In this regard, Dowling’s publication frames Shepard arsenic a awesome of American civilization successful the precocious 20th century, arsenic the provocations of the ’60s counterculture settled into the gentle nudges of the ’80s and ’90s. During his aboriginal career, Shepard savaged Vietnam-era conservatism, preferring the hippie vibe of the Bay Area to what helium called the “sprawling, demented snake of L.A. to the south.” But helium was edging toward the mainstream himself, sometimes against his will. Bob Dylan pulled him into his orbit, arsenic did rising New Hollywood directors similar Terence Malick; a accidental gathering with Joni Mitchell connected the roadworthy with Dylan turned into a brief, torrid matter that she chronicled successful her classical “Coyote.”

Dowling, writer of a erstwhile biography of Shepard’s idol Eugene O’Neill, expertly untangles the past of a antheral who contained multitudes — “country boy, playwright, lover, rocker, husband, father.” (And, successful nary tiny measure, alcoholic — his drinking clouds the second chapters of his life, wrecking friendships, affairs and enactment on the way.) The writer has the payment of Shepard’s writing, which encompasses reams of plays, abbreviated stories and essays, arsenic good arsenic candid insights from friends and collaborators similar Johnny Dark and Ethan Hawke. (But not his woman O-Lan Jones, whom helium divorced successful 1984, oregon his longtime spouse Jessica Lange.)

“Success was similar a tide that came crashing done his beforehand door,” Dark says, and Shepard’s acclaim successful the ’80s astir overwhelmed him. A drawstring of potent household dramas similar “Buried Child” and “Fool for Love” made him arsenic overmuch a household sanction arsenic his acting and works similar “True West” enactment companies similar Chicago’s Steppenwolf connected the map. (John Malkovich and Gary Sinise, who starred successful the Steppenwolf production, revived their roles for nationalist tv successful 1984; it’s worthy tracking down connected YouTube successful each its grainy glory.) Here, Shepard publically wrestled with each demon that household delivered, sorting done toxic masculinity with a uncommon quality and ferocity, determined to, arsenic helium said, “destroy the thought of the household drama.”

That upward trajectory, and a dilatory diminution of rehashes and breakups until his decease successful 2017, are abundantly wide successful Dowling’s hands. Less clear, though, is what made those works truthful almighty successful themselves, and successful the discourse of their times. Dowling quotes small from Shepard’s plays themselves, much contented to absorption connected captious and assemblage response. But that disappears a important constituent of a writer who was absurdly compelled to constitute — Dowling reports that Shepard started drafting his 1993 play “Simpatico” portion driving his pickup connected a Tennessee highway. A sensation of the macho banter that powered “True West” and “Buried Child” mightiness person clarified his peculiar unit arsenic a writer.

Robert M. Dowling

(Mairead Dowling)

So, too, mightiness immoderate deeper discourse astir Shepard’s spot successful the theatre landscape. As Dowling notes, successful clip Shepard became an planetary improvement — peculiarly successful Ireland, wherever helium was treated arsenic Beckett’s heir. But helium wasn’t the lone playwright moving done themes of household and masculinity, and Dowling lone glancingly mentions compatriots similar David Mamet and August Wilson. Except for a little notation of a pep speech helium gave Lynn Nottage, Shepard seems astir wholly divorced from the theatre community. It made him singular, but possibly unintentionally it makes him look little sui generis than lonely.

In that sense, possibly “Coyote” excessively overmuch embraces the broad-shouldered American mythology that Shepard some traded successful and questioned. We person an abiding affection for lone geniuses, men who spell solo. In his aboriginal years helium paraded his nonchalance: “If you don’t recognize it, I’ll conscionable constitute different one,” helium told a newsman of his work. But arsenic his assemblage began failing him owed to progressive muscular atrophy, the story crumbled. Shepard reached retired to Dark, craving an aged person astatine his bedside. Dark, exhausted by years of hurtful, alcohol-fueled behavior, passed. “F— him,” Dowling quotes Dark arsenic saying. Shepard’s response: “F— him.” There’s a writer who could’ve built a Pulitzer-winning play astir that.

Athitakis is simply a writer successful Phoenix and writer of “The New Midwest.”