The best theatre to stream this month: James Earl Jones drives Miss Daisy, Ed Harris takes on Sam Shepard
The Hollywood giants are joined online by audio noir from Danny Krass, Nicole Scherzinger’s Norma Desmond and a one-woman 25th birthday party
February 2024
Days of Heaven review – Malick’s early masterwork heralds a rarefied visionary
The director’s rereleased 1978 film revealed some of the authorial signatures that would underscore a film-making career punctuated by a two-decade disappearance
July 2022
True West review – Sam Shepard’s fraternal face-off gains new resonance
Steppenwolf’s staging at Galway International Arts festival has a smart political and racial awareness as it unpicks the American myth
January 2022
Sons, fathers and clones: Caryl Churchill’s A Number – in pictures
A father is confronted by three sons – two of whom are clones of the first – in Churchill’s classic play, which has a 20th-anniversary revival at the Old Vic this month
September 2020
Observer New Review Q&A
Patti Smith: 'I feel the unrest of the world in the pit of my stomach'
The singer on solitude, lifelong friend Sam Shepard, and her latest memoir
October 2019
Ages of the Moon review – Sam Shepard bromance laughs in the face of death
Shepard picks apart the frailties of two men tormented by unspoken emotions, from marital meltdown and armchair priapism to the existential crisis of mortality
June 2019
All aboard the Bob Dylan express! How Rolling Thunder revved round America
When Dylan chanced upon a huge Roma gathering in France, he was transfixed – and formed his own travelling supergroup. As Martin Scorsese brings its ragtag magic to screens, we hitch a ride back to 75
January 2019
True West review – Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano go south in mediocre drama
Sam Shepard’s most popular play hits Broadway yet again but with underwhelming results
December 2018
The week in theatre: True West; Hole; Fiddler on the Roof – review
Kit Harington and Johnny Flynn slug it out as Sam Shepard’s feuding brothers, women rabble-rouse at the Royal Court, and Trevor Nunn’s revival of Fiddler on the Roof misses its moment
True West review – Harington and Flynn star as Shepard's warring siblings
Kit Harington and Johnny Flynn are good, if slightly mismatched, as the brothers in Sam Shepard’s haunting play
On my radar
On my radar: Wim Wenders’s cultural highlights
The German director on stunning 15th-century art, the magic of Nick Cave, and the spirituality of a Franciscan friar
September 2018
Never Here review – dark, disturbing surveillance thriller
In his last screen role, Sam Shepard plays an art dealer whose affair with a young conceptual artist leads to disquieting questions of identity
February 2018
The Mildew: Sam Shepard's 'lost' play finally makes it to the stage
An early one-act play from the late Pulitzer prize winner is being performed for the first time, hinting at the great playwright he would later become
December 2017
The Observer's obituaries of 2017
Sam Shepard remembered by Johnny Dark
The actor and playwright’s best friend recalls a 50-year bond based on their shared love of literature, letters and life in the fast lane
September 2017
Harry Dean Stanton: gentleness, sensitivity, gallantry and painful masculinity
After decades of supporting roles and character parts, the late Harry Dean Stanton’s legend suddenly came into focus in Paris, Texas
August 2017
Letter: Sam Shepard’s ambition was to be a rock star
Beth Porter writes: Apart from his writing, Sam’s ambition was to be a rock star in the mould of Bob Dylan and Lou Reed
Sam Shepard 1943-2017: ‘He was the kindest man, truthful, witty and generous’
An appreciation by the actor Stephen Rea, star of a number of the late American playwright’s works
'It was like meeting a cowboy': Ed Harris, Kathy Burke and others remember Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard was wild at heart and mapped the American soul
