True West

This 1980 play by Sam Shepard begins naturalistically enough. Two men are in a single room, one (Austin) is trying to type a screenplay, the other (Lee) is drinking copious amounts of beer. We find out pretty soon that they are brothers, and that Lee is an unwelcome visitor. He has a criminal record for burglary, and his brother is very wary of his brooding presence.

From this naturalistic beginning Shepard spins a compelling, frightening and often lyrical tale of not only family dysfunction but also metaphorically the dysfunction of the USA. The plot device is simple enough; a movie producer (Saul Kimmer) is interested in Austin’s script and comes to visit him. Lee, despite his seeming lack of education (and charm) manages to invite Saul for a game of golf. The wager the two men have on the game result on Austin’s script being dropped and a story idea of Lee’s being taken up.

The resulting role reversals between the two brothers are by turns frightening and funny – “I’m making a movie. Let’s leave the film making to the French”. Lee’s idea, which Austin despises for it’s absurdity, involves two men chasing across the desert, one about to kill the other, and the action of the play cranks up to making that idea a reality as things turn very violent in the final reel.

The acting from Austin Ellis and Christopher Zegel as the brothers is excellent (they alternate the roles in different performances), and the pacing by director David Linfield is good (though why we had an interval in which a song was played and nothing else changed or happened I’m not sure). The acting is let down by Gordon Restifo, who’s Saul seemed reluctant to make eye contact with anyone and shuffled about a lot.

My main criticism of the piece, however, is the staging of the last fifteen minutes. Before the lights went down we were warned in a jocular manner that things might fly into the audience. The last scene of the play requires Lee to smash up a typewriter with a golf club. He does this violently and things did indeed fly into the audience. The ensuing mayhem on stage, involving spilled water, sharp debris from the destruction of said typewriter and various other broken and sharp objects made me genuinely feel for the actors' safety as the slithered about, throwing each other roughly to the floor. I’ve seen a lot of unsafe fight choreography at this year’s festival, but this was by far the worst.

Don’t scare the audience in this way, guys, it doesn’t make things more real but jolts them out of the world of the play. And don’t assume it’s okay for bits of metal to spin into the auditorium

It ain’t big and it ain’t clever.