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True West
True West
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Biz Staff Pick!
Author: Sam Shepard Publisher: Samuel French (cover image may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 72 Pub. Date: 1981 ISBN-10: 0573617287 ISBN-13: 9780573617287 Cast Size: 1 female, 3 male
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About
the Play:
True West was one of Royal National Theatre of Britain's
top 100 plays of the 20th century.
Finalist for 1983 Pulitzer Prize in Drama
True West has long been a favourite of acting teachers for male/male scenes and three-person scenes.
True West is a full-length dark comedy by Sam Shepard.
Often hailed as Shepard's masterpiece, True West is a
character study that examines the relationship between Austin, a
moderately successful screenwriter, and his older brother, Lee, a
drifter. They reunite while house sitting for their mother in a sweltering Los Angeles suburb, leading to
the airing of old resentments and some unexpected twists in the
relationship.
True West is a brilliant, funny play about two brothers who
clash over a film script. The sheltered life of Austin as a
screenwriter is interrupted by the arrival of his older brother, Lee, a professional thief, dedicated drinker, and
dog-fight enthusiast. Austin is working on a script he has sold to
fast-talking Hollywood producer Sal Kimmer. Lee pitches his own idea for a movie to Kimmer,
who then wants Austin to junk his bleak, modern love story and write
Lee's true-to-life Western tale about two drifters on horseback. True West is an American classic that takes gleeful potshots at Hollywood, the myth of the frontier, and the escape fantasies that drive the American imagination.
True West premiered in 1980 at the Magic Theatre in San
Franciso, then moved to the Public Theatre in New York. But it did
not gain recognition as an "American Masterpiece" until the
Steppenwolf Theater Company revived it in 1984, making true stars of
John Malkovich and Gary Sinise. True West was
revived on Broadway in 1999 at New York's Circle in the Square, where
Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly
memorably alternated playing the roles of the brothers. The
play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and
workshops and is regularly performed in regional, college,
and community theatre productions.
Cast: 1 female, 3 male
What people say:
"Shepard's masterwork…. It
tells us a truth, as glimpsed by a 37 year old genius." —
New York Post
"True West still
rings true and stands as the greatest American drama since Long Day's
Journey Into Night." — National Review
"By far the funniest, truest, and most mesmerizing play on Broadway." — New York Daily News
"It's clear, funny,
naturalistic. It's also opaque, terrifying, surrealistic. If that
sounds contradictory, you're on to one aspect of Shepard's winning
genius; the ability to make you think you're watching one thing while
at the same time he's presenting another." — San
Francisco Chronicle
About the Playwright:
Sam Shepard (1943-2017) was an American playwright and
actor. Born in Illinois and raised in Southern California, he worked
as a farmhand and musician before moving to New York to begin his
career as a playwright. The celebrated author – who New York
Magazine called "the greatest American playwright of his
generation" – wrote more than forty plays, eleven of which
have won Obie Awards. His play Buried Child won the Pulitzer
for drama. Two other plays True West and Fool for Love
were nominated for the Pulitzers as well, and are frequently revived.
As an actor he appeared in more than thirty films, including an Oscar
nominated performance for his role as test pilot Chuck Yeager in The
Right Stuff.
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