‘TRUE WEST’: Ethan Hawke & Paul Dano. Photo: Joan Marcus

 

TRUE WEST

Written by Sam Shepard
Directed by James Macdonald
Through March 17, 2019
American Airlines Theater
227 West 42nd Street
(212-719-1300), www.RoundaboutTheatre.org

 

By David NouNou

Siblings by nature tend to have a rivalry. Some of the rivalry is created by parents, some by nature, and some by Sam Shepard. Some are friendly rivalries but in Shepard’s plays, they seem to have a nihilistic overtone. They start with tension, move to the absurd, and then go for the kill.

While Mom (Marylouise Burke) is off on vacation in Alaska, her sons stay in her well-maintained California home. She has left her house to be looked after by her younger, meek, college-educated writer son, Austin (Paul Dano). Austin has come for solitude to write his screenplay and desperately wants to sell it to filmmaker Saul Kimmer (Gary Wilmes). On this particular night, the unexpected older brother, Lee (Ethan Hawke), the black sheep of the family, has arrived to wreak mayhem on Austin’s life. To say he is menacing is an understatement.

Austin is set to close the deal with Saul to sell his screenplay (which is a love story) gets blind sided by Lee with his ridiculous story of two cowboys chasing each other at night in Texas by car and horses whichever the occasion suits them. In losing a golf match to Lee, Saul drops Austin’s piece in favor of Lee’s drivel. To make matters worse, Saul wants Austin to drop his own work and instead write Lee’s Western screenplay. This ends Act I.

Act II starts in a hilarious manner, Mom’s home has been trashed and decimated. Her beloved plants have been neglected and are dead, and Lee is having a fight with the typewriter in trying to get his dialogue moving. Thus, the role reversal, Lee is now the tormented writer and Austin is the instigator knowing his illiterate brother won’t be able to crank a word out for his screenplay. This leads to anarchy and unusual turns of event.

The play is boldly directed by British director James Macdonald with new twists and more humor inserted to make it more like theater of the absurd. The two aces here are Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano, both giving sterling performances and their best stage performances to date. The changing of their dynamics is precision sharp, and they make each moment count.

In all honesty, Sam Shepard isn’t the easiest playwright to sit through and understand the fatalistic psychological undercurrents throughout his plays. For audiences he is an acquired taste. For most actors, they love to get a crack at his machinations and come up with new meanings. Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano have done this and their performances are a welcome addition to the start of a new theatrical year.

 

Edited by Scott Harrah
Published January 31, 2019
Reviewed at January 30, 2019 press performance.

 

‘TRUE WEST”: Ethan Hawke & Paul Dano. Photo: Joan Marcus

‘TRUE WEST”: Paul Dano & (standing) Ethan Hawke. Photo: Joan Marcus