SOURCE: A review of Buried Child, in The Nation, New York, Vol. 227, No. 19, December 2, 1978, pp. 621-22.

Buried Child was presented in New York City at the Theatre for the New City in November, 1978, and went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979. Clurman, a highly regarded director, educator, and author, and the drama critic for the Nation from 1953 to 1980, wrote the following review of Buried Child, praising the improvisational energy of the play and the ";quintessentially American"; nature of Shepard's work.

The 35-year-old Sam Shepard is an oddly significant writer. He is prolific to a fault, but that may be due to the nature of his talent. The only one of his plays to have achieved a ";major"; production in the neighborhood of Broadway is Operation Sidewinder (Lincoln Center, 1970). His first full-length play, La Turista, was presented, without benefit of wide press coverage, at the American...