First staged in 1980, True West is considered a classic play of sibling rivalry. Ghosts of previous productions loom large. The 1982 Steppenwolf Theatre Company production with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich made the play famous. With playwright Sam Shepard’s approval, it transferred from Chicago to Off-Broadway. In 2000, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly were both nominated for Tony awards in a well-regarded Broadway revival. This is my first opportunity to see this play so my thoughts are not informed by anything other than its reputation.
True West updates the biblical story of Cain and Abel, two brothers whose tensions famously resulted in murder. Cain was punished into a life of wandering. With an unnamed wife, he begat the human race. Successful film star Paul Dano (A Free Man of Color) takes on the character of Austin, a seemingly mild mannered screenwriter who is house sitting for his mother. His unnamed wife and family are not with him. His drifter brother is Lee, played by another successful film and stage star, Ethan Hawke (The Coast of Utopia). Lee has just wandered in from the desert where he survives off the grid using skills which include stealing.
The differences in these two are stark. One is clean cut, the other sports a beard. Lee’s clothing is stained. It’s fairly easy to conjure images of polar opposite brothers. One of mine is a guard in a maximum security federal prison and I write a theater blog. Exploiting inherently oddball scenarios of sibling differences can be a surefire winner. After seeing this production of True West, I cannot grasp what made this play so highly regarded.
There can be no doubt that this material must be heaven to an actor. Ethan Hawke is a dynamic Lee, full of bravado and testosterone. He may be the prodigal son but his eyes register a smoldering intensity of jealousy and self-doubt. The performance is big, accomplished and entertaining throughout. Mr. Dano’s Austin is a milquetoast at the beginning of the play. The brother connection is not believable which may be intentional. The personality bypass required to carry this story arc into crazy town doesn’t work. The brothers are Cain and Abel after all and bad things are bound to happen. Both actors have to be able to levitate this material from passive-aggressive fraternal opposites to drunken enemies. In my view, this balance was too one-sided. Without the riveting fireworks, cracks in the play’s structure, notably its unrealistic timeline, seem irksome.
In addition to the core brother battles, Mr. Shepard added additional colors to his play. Rough Old West frontier survival meets the New West, notably one with the charms of a seductive, vapid and commercialized Hollywood. As for this playwright, I may not yet have found a production that lives up to his reputation. The Fool For Love Broadway revival a few years ago was clearly not helpful. I remain hopeful for an outstanding version of the Pulitzer winning Buried Child or Curse of the Starving Class.