The Holy Ghostly
By Sam Shepard
1970
First Published
3.75
Average Rating
300
Number of Pages
One-act play. Set in the lonely American desert badlands, home to witches garbed in coyote skins and demons who hiss like rattlesnakes, a dying man struggles to connect with his estranged son. A father, who lives a mythicized past and a son who lives in an historically isolated and therefore coldly brutal present are locked in struggle. Neither Pop's hell-raising passion nor Ice's emotional frigidity is admirable or healthy, and neither can respond to a world depicted as full of relentless, unfathomable change. "The Holy Ghostly" is a raw-boned, early Sam Shepard play, casting spells and incantations over the shadows of a ghost-lit campfire. It unfolds in a free-fall of syncopated language and haunted back-beats that propel this spellbound one-act to its apocalyptic climax.
Avg Rating
3.75
Number of Ratings
4
5 STARS
25%
4 STARS
25%
3 STARS
50%
2 STARS
0%
1 STARS
0%
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Author
Sam Shepard
Author · 47 books
Sam Shepard was an American artist who worked as an award-winning playwright, writer and actor. His many written works are known for being frank and often absurd, as well as for having an authentic sense of the style and sensibility of the gritty modern American west. He was an actor of the stage and motion pictures; a director of stage and film; author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs; and a musician.
