Examining Shepard's dual career as a Hollywood actor and an experimental playwright, Brustein reviews the heralded 1996 revival of Buried Child, for which Shepard both revised and wrote new material. Comparing the play with the author's autobiographical Cruising Paradise, the critic finds that while the play deals with difficult themes, it is ultimately deserving of its status as a modern classic.

Challenging the camera over a period of thirty years, Sam Shepard's face appears in sepia and black-and-white on the jackets of three newly issued books. The chiseled bones, the two deep furrows in his forehead, the uncombed mane and dimpled chin are physical constants. What the camera also reveals is how the acid of years and circumstance have etched radical mutations in Shepard's appearance. Something more than passing time is responsible for his transformation from the youthful hipster depicted in Bruce Weber's unposed photo for The Unseen...