True West (play)
Encyclopedia
True West is a play by American
playwright Sam Shepard
. Like most of his works it is inspired by myths of American life and popular culture. The play is a more traditional narrative than most of the plays that Shepard has written.
for his mother, who is vacationing in Alaska. His older brother, Lee, appears at the house after the two have not seen each other for years. Lee is a drifter and thief and has been living in the desert. The two are not on good terms, but Austin attempts to appease his older brother, who is more dominant.
The play also has parallels with James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake". These include an absent father, about whom accusations have been made (HCE), a distracted mother (ALP) and two competing/warring brothers (Shem and Sean) who, in contrast to Cain and Abel, cannot be killed as they are really the same person. The fifth character in True West is the girl who cannot be found or contacted, this too parallels the fifth character in Finnegan's Wake - Issey.
in San Francisco
, where Shepard was the resident playwright. It had its world premiere there on July 10, 1980 . It was originally directed by Robert Woodruff
and starred Peter Coyote
as Austin, Jim Haynie as Lee, Tom Dahlgren
as Saul Kimmer, and Carol McElheney as Mom. The production later moved to Joseph Papp
's The Public Theater in New York City
, where it starred Tommy Lee Jones
and Peter Boyle
.
It was revived by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company
, with then fairly unknown actors Gary Sinise
(who also directed the production) and John Malkovich
playing the leads. With Shepard's approval, this production made a big splash when it transferred to New York, where it opened at Cherry Lane Theatre
. It ran for 762 performances and, later in the run, the leads were taken over by James Belushi
, Gary Cole
, Erik Estrada
, Dennis Quaid
and Randy Quaid
.
The production was so successful that a television recording (featuring Sinise and Malkovich) aired on PBS.
In 2000, Philip Seymour Hoffman
and John C. Reilly
played the leads on Broadway
, where they switched parts every so often during the run. They solicited to share a single joint Tony Award
nomination for Best Actor in a Play for the production, but were instead each nominated individually. This revival was also nominated for Best Play and Best Director (Matthew Warchus
).
In 2002 Bruce Willis
and Chad Smith
starred in a television movie version staged as a play, filmed in front of a live audience and directed by Gary Halvorson
with Andrew Alburger and Danielle Kennedy in supporting roles.
In 2003, Wilson Milam
took a lavish and updated production (replacing the smashing of a typewriter with a modern working laptop, and using 20 working toasters) to the Bristol Old Vic
with Phil Daniels
as Lee and Andrew Tiernan
as Austin. The production caused the Bristol Old Vic
to remove the first 3 rows of seats for fear that the audience would be harmed and installed a Perspex
shield for safety reasons. It did however receive much critical acclaim from the British National Press and was cited as Pick of the Week in The Guardian newspaper (October 27, November 2, 2003).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
playwright Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...
. Like most of his works it is inspired by myths of American life and popular culture. The play is a more traditional narrative than most of the plays that Shepard has written.
Plot
True West is about the sibling rivalry between two estranged brothers who have reconnected. Austin, the younger brother, is a Hollywood screenwriter writing a screenplay while house sittingHouse sitting
House sitting is the practice whereby a landlord , leaving their house for a period of time, entrusts it to one or more "house sitters", who by a mutual agreement are entitled to live there rent-free in exchange for assuming responsibilities such as taking care of the homeowner's pets, performing...
for his mother, who is vacationing in Alaska. His older brother, Lee, appears at the house after the two have not seen each other for years. Lee is a drifter and thief and has been living in the desert. The two are not on good terms, but Austin attempts to appease his older brother, who is more dominant.
The play also has parallels with James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake". These include an absent father, about whom accusations have been made (HCE), a distracted mother (ALP) and two competing/warring brothers (Shem and Sean) who, in contrast to Cain and Abel, cannot be killed as they are really the same person. The fifth character in True West is the girl who cannot be found or contacted, this too parallels the fifth character in Finnegan's Wake - Issey.
Performances
True West was first performed at the Magic TheatreMagic Theatre
The Magic Theatre is a theatre company founded in 1967, presently based at the historic Fort Mason Center on San Francisco's northern waterfront...
in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, where Shepard was the resident playwright. It had its world premiere there on July 10, 1980 . It was originally directed by Robert Woodruff
Robert Woodruff (director)
Robert Woodruff is an American theater director.-Early life:Woodruff graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude from the University at Buffalo in political science. He has a masters degree in theater arts from San Francisco State University...
and starred Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
as Austin, Jim Haynie as Lee, Tom Dahlgren
Tom Dahlgren
Tom Dahlgren , is an American actor. His professional acting career spans four decades, beginning in 1972...
as Saul Kimmer, and Carol McElheney as Mom. The production later moved to Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp was an American theatrical producer and director. Papp established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in downtown New York . "The Public," as it is known, has many small theatres within it...
's The Public Theater in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where it starred Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones
Tommy Lee Jones is an American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for the 1993 thriller film The Fugitive....
and Peter Boyle
Peter Boyle
Peter Lawrence Boyle, Jr. was an American actor, best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and as a comical monster in Mel Brooks' film spoof Young Frankenstein ....
.
It was revived by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Steppenwolf Theatre Company is a Tony Award-winning Chicago theatre company founded in 1974 by Gary Sinise, Terry Kinney and Jeff Perry in the basement of a church in Highland Park, Illinois. It has since relocated to Chicago's Halsted Street, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Its name comes from...
, with then fairly unknown actors Gary Sinise
Gary Sinise
Gary Alan Sinise is an American actor, film director and musician. During his career, Sinise has won various awards including an Emmy and a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1992, Sinise directed, and played the role of George Milton in the successful film adaptation of...
(who also directed the production) and John Malkovich
John Malkovich
John Gavin Malkovich is an American actor, producer, director and fashion designer with his label Technobohemian. Over the last 25 years of his career, Malkovich has appeared in more than 70 motion pictures. For his roles in Places in the Heart and In the Line of Fire, he received Academy Award...
playing the leads. With Shepard's approval, this production made a big splash when it transferred to New York, where it opened at Cherry Lane Theatre
Cherry Lane Theatre
The Cherry Lane Theatre , located at 38 Commerce Street in the borough of Manhattan, was New York City's oldest, continuously running off-Broadway theater...
. It ran for 762 performances and, later in the run, the leads were taken over by James Belushi
James Belushi
James Adam "Jim" Belushi is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is the younger brother of comic actor John Belushi.-Early life:Belushi was born in Chicago...
, Gary Cole
Gary Cole
Gary Michael Cole is an American actor. Cole is known for his supporting roles in numerous film and television productions since the 1990s.-Early life:...
, Erik Estrada
Erik Estrada
Henry Enrique "Erik" Estrada is an American police officer and actor, known for his co-starring lead role in the 1977–1983 United States police television series CHiPs...
, Dennis Quaid
Dennis Quaid
Dennis William Quaid is an American actor known for his comedic and dramatic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the 1980s, his career rebounded in the 1990s after he overcame an addiction to drugs and an eating disorder...
and Randy Quaid
Randy Quaid
Randall Rudy "Randy" Quaid is an American actor perhaps best known for his role as Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon's Vacation movies, as well as his numerous supporting roles in films, including his Oscar nominated performance in The Last Detail, Independence Day, Kingpin and Brokeback Mountain...
.
The production was so successful that a television recording (featuring Sinise and Malkovich) aired on PBS.
In 2000, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
and John C. Reilly
John C. Reilly
John Christopher Reilly, Jr. is an American film and theater actor, singer, and comedian. Debuting in Casualties of War in 1989, he is one of several actors whose careers were launched by Brian De Palma. To date, he has appeared in more than fifty films, including three separate films in 2002...
played the leads on Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, where they switched parts every so often during the run. They solicited to share a single joint Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nomination for Best Actor in a Play for the production, but were instead each nominated individually. This revival was also nominated for Best Play and Best Director (Matthew Warchus
Matthew Warchus
-Life:Warchus studied music and drama at Bristol University. He has directed for the National Youth Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Donmar Warehouse, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal National Theatre, Opera North, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera and in the West...
).
In 2002 Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis
Walter Bruce Willis , better known as Bruce Willis, is an American actor, producer, and musician. His career began in television in the 1980s and has continued both in television and film since, including comedic, dramatic, and action roles...
and Chad Smith
Chad Smith
Chad Smith is an American musician, best known as the longtime and current drummer of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Smith is also the drummer of the hard rock supergroup Chickenfoot which includes Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, and Michael Anthony, former Deep Purple vocalist Glenn Hughes' backing band and...
starred in a television movie version staged as a play, filmed in front of a live audience and directed by Gary Halvorson
Gary Halvorson
Gary Halvorson is an American director of television shows, series and film.-Directing:He was trained as a pianist at Juilliard, but is primarily noted as the director of situation comedies such as Friends and The Drew Carey Show. He also made his film directorial debut The Adventures of Elmo in...
with Andrew Alburger and Danielle Kennedy in supporting roles.
In 2003, Wilson Milam
Wilson Milam
Wilson Milam is an American theatre director from Bellevue, Washington. He is a founding member and Artistic Director of The Hired Gun Theatre Company....
took a lavish and updated production (replacing the smashing of a typewriter with a modern working laptop, and using 20 working toasters) to the Bristol Old Vic
Bristol Old Vic
The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
with Phil Daniels
Phil Daniels
Philip W. "Phil" Daniels is an English actor, most noted for film and television roles as "cockneys" such as Jimmy in Quadrophenia, Richards in Scum, Stewart in The Class of Miss MacMichael, Mark in Meantime, Kevin Wicks in EastEnders, DCS Frank Patterson in New Tricks and Edward Kitchener "Ted"...
as Lee and Andrew Tiernan
Andrew Tiernan
Andrew James Tiernan is an English actor.-Theatre:Tiernan began acting with the Birmingham Youth Theatre and moved to London in 1984 to study a three-year Diploma in Acting at the Drama Centre London run by Christopher Fettes and Yat Malmgren...
as Austin. The production caused the Bristol Old Vic
Bristol Old Vic
The Bristol Old Vic is a theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, King Street, in Bristol, England. The theatre complex includes the 1766 Theatre Royal, which claims to be the oldest continually-operating theatre in England, along with a 1970s studio theatre , offices and backstage facilities...
to remove the first 3 rows of seats for fear that the audience would be harmed and installed a Perspex
Acrylic glass
Poly is a transparent thermoplastic, often used as a light or shatter-resistant alternative to glass. It is sometimes called acrylic glass. Chemically, it is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate...
shield for safety reasons. It did however receive much critical acclaim from the British National Press and was cited as Pick of the Week in The Guardian newspaper (October 27, November 2, 2003).