The first part of the thesis focuses on Sam Shepard's drama, I specifically illuminates the socio-cultural influences that contributed to the development of a specific dramatic form, structure and themes that are associated to Shepard's plays. Sam Shepard started writing plays as an active member of the Off-Off-Broadway movement which flourished in the 1960s in New York. The thesis presents the movement in greater detail and gives examples from Shepard's early plays. When Shepard moved to California, his mode of writing changed and he produced his famous Family Trilogy (Curse of the Starving Class (1976), Buried Child (1979), and True West (1980)) - a trilogy which is grounded in domestic realism and has postmodernist elements. I analyse Buried Child and True West through the critical view of the American Dream. The second part of the thesis presents six Sam Shepard plays that were performed on Slovene stages from 1985 to the present. Interviews with artists and translators who were actively involved in their production are included in order to shed light on the circumstances that accompanied the performances and their transfer to the Slovene cultural space.
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