reviewvancouver: Jane Penistan

Brothers, sibling rivalry, family traits are all subjects for playwrights. True West, Sam Shepard’s close to thirty-year old play is another Cain and Abel story.

On the outskirts of Los Angeles, two brothers, Austin and Lee, are apparently as unlike as chalk and cheese, as they meet after several years apart, in their mother’s suburban home.

Austin (Vincent Gale) is living solitarily trying to finish writing an important script in anticipation of its sale to a visiting potential film producer. Lee (Brian Markinson), an itinerant, ne’er do well, chronic alcoholic character, turns up unexpectedly, intent on a little local larceny and free board and lodging.

What ensues is that the older brother, Lee, is convinced that he has a better idea for a script. He wants to portray the real experiences of a true Westerner -- a man of the wide open spaces, a self-sufficient independent loner, reliant on no one but himself. Austin can do the writing while he dictates his modus vivendi.

Austin, who finds loneliness stultifying, and is a town-dweller by nature, tries to explain that writing is not that easy, even with a university degree and plenty of experience. Like Cain, Lee, as the older sibling has always been jealous of his brother’s quiet ability and his apparently easy life. Also, he has always been the strong and bullying boss, who gets his own way with little brother.

After borrowing his brother’s car, Lee returns home just as Austin’s deal with Saul Kimmer (Alec Willows), the film producer is being finalized. Taking it over, Lee invites Kimmer to a round of golf the next morning and during the game persuades Kimmel to look into his new script about the real West, not its Hollywood movie version. Somewhat reluctantly, Kimmel agrees and Lee instructs Austin in writing the new script, which will take the place of Austin’s original.

During a long drinking bout, the brothers argue as the script is not brought to fruition. Finally, Lee goads Austin into trying his hand at a little neighbourhood burglary, and to prove his independence Austin succeeds in returning home from a tour of the surrounding houses with a fine collection of toasters in proof of his ability to look after himself in the urban jungle. Now he, too, wants to try living in the desert with his brother.

Hopelessly drunk and aggressive, the bickering brothers proceed to break up their mother’s household, littering the place with broken furniture, household goods, and appliances, including demolishing the ancient typewriter that Lee has been pecking at with a driver.

Austin decides to polish the toasters and proceed to making toast, which annoys Lee who attacks his brother. Neither is cognizant of their mother’s unexpected arrival. Stultified by the mess and the raw aggression of her sons, she orders them not to fight in the house, but to go outside if they have to continue.

Overcome by the destruction of her cherished household she leaves again, telling the boys she is going to a hotel until the house is habitable again. Donna White as Mom has a short but dramatic scene in which she is in complete command. It's funny, shocking, and show stopping.

After almost killing each other the brothers decide to go off to live together in the desert. But sibling rivalry is still bubbling fiercely as they belligerently set about their exit.

The dialogue throughout is crisp and clever, interspersed with moments of great humour and quiet intervals of poetic reminiscence of earlier days. The contrast and similarities of the brothers display the family traits, which are referred to in the text, with the remembered events of their childhood and of their parents.

This is both a physical and psychological play and good, if noisy, entertainment. But how it reminds one of one's own families!