True West
Blue Theatre, 916 Springdale, 684-3220
Through June 18
Running time: 2 hr., 10 min.
While it may go without saying, True West is Sam Shepard’s most produced play. You’ll see a revival of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Buried Child every few years (as we did in Austin last
season), and his A Lie of the Mind is currently proving popular again, what with the current production by Capital T Theatre, at least one high school staging this year, and one slated for Mary Moody Northen Theatre next season. On occasion, you’ll see even Fool for Love or Cowboy Mouth pop up on a local stage. But you’ll see True West mounted the most by far. The reasons for this are many and varied, among them the small cast of four, the single kitchen set that can be reduced to little more than a refrigerator and a table and chairs, and the all-American story melding Hollywood, the Old West, and sibling rivalry, with a first scene so word-perfect that it has seen countless renditions in acting classes the world over.
In this Dystheatre production, set designer Ace Manning gives you not just the kitchen sink but the entire kitchen. I don’t recall if there’s a functioning stove, but it wouldn’t surprise me if you could cook a meal, given the number of pots and pans available and what I saw stocked in the refrigerator. For the preshow, a Western film was projected on the set, with the sound played low like some night-owl accompaniment. It set an appropriate tone for this story of Austin, living away from his wife and children while taking care of his mother’s house and preparing to sell a screenplay to a producer named Saul when his vagabond brother Lee shows up. Lee envies Austin’s success, and Austin envies Lee’s freedom, especially Lee’s relationship with their absent father. When the beer-guzzling Lee insinuates himself between Austin and Saul, the story begins to turn in on itself, with Austin capitulating to Lee and, eventually, trying to prove himself to his older sibling.
With Shepard’s spare, realistic, and beautifully paced writing, the story couldn’t be more perfect outside of one single, very coincidental plot point. And while Dystheatre has the makings of a more than serviceable production of the show, it didn’t quite reach that level on opening night. The actors are appropriately cast. Michael Ferstenfeld made a scruffy, pugnacious Lee; Alex Hilary had a nerdy edge as Austin; Donald Bayne was the most sincere, kind movie producer you’re ever likely to see; and Ellen Massey’s Mom looked like she just returned from vacation and really did not want to clean up the kitchen.
Now it may have been opening night jitters or director Asaf Ronen may have coached the actors this way, but very early on one of the characters has a violent outburst, shouting along with violent action. I’ve heard it said that, as an actor, you should never take your volume as high as you can because, well, then you leave yourself and the audience nowhere else to go. My experience as a theatre viewer has been exactly that – don’t “take the top off,” because once it’s off, it’s hard to keep it on. And that’s what happens here, as the top comes off pretty much every time the opportunity arises. Let’s hope it calms down a bit, because if the Dystheatre ensemble can get their performances as clean and controlled as Shepard’s writing, they’ll have quite a spectacle.
This article appears in June 3 • 2011.