Content Warning: Contains spoilers for Albion College’s production of “True West.”
Siblings. If you have them, you’re likely more than familiar with the different dynamics that come with the territory. You love them, but you don’t always like them.
It’s oftentimes relationships like this that take the cake when being shown on screen because most audience members, myself included, like the drama. Hence, the comedic Sam Shepard’s “True West.”
Good ‘Ole Fashioned Sibling Rivalry
On Thursday, I went to see Albion College’s production of “True West” and found it incredibly interesting. A stark contrast from earlier performances of “Firebringer” and “Hedda Gabler,” the audience was thrown into the story of two feuding brothers, Lee and Austin.
Austin, played by Marysville sophomore Brady Zalac, is an educated man originally tasked with the job of house-sitting for his mother. This job entails watering her beloved plants, keeping house and, unexpectedly, watching after his older brother and all his shifty ways.
Though Austin does his best not to infringe on his brother’s freedoms and character traits as much as they differ from his own, we see many barely restrained emotions peeking through when the stakes grow higher between the two.
“Something complicated about Austin is that he wants to be around his brother. He wants to have a good relationship with him. But also, he pisses him off so quickly,” Zalac said. “And he has to constantly fight to not get pissed off and it’s hard to just bury emotions like that.”
Lee, played by Ortonville junior Seph Cartier, is the second side to the brother’s coin. He’s far less predictable than his brother and far more mysterious, leaving a lot of his past and character up for audience interpretation.
“Me and Zach, the director, talked a lot about Lee from the get-go, driving the energy of the play,” Cartier said. “At any moment you’re like ‘what’s this guy going to do?’”
With two very different personalities at play, it’s no surprise that the two butt heads on nearly everything. Because boys will be boy, or something like that.
While it’s both funny and entertaining, it’s also quite relatable for someone who has multiple siblings with personalities far different from my own. It’s not always easy to get along with someone who insists on going left while you go right, a factor that I think both actors nailed.
The Plot… Where is She?
The main premise of the play is clear. Two siblings fight and feud with each other while also harboring suppressed emotions of jealousy for the way their respective lives turned out. They both desire what the other has, whether it be experiences or achievements.
Austin, a respectable scholar with the chance to make it big and Lee, a thief as well as a man that does things however he wants, just because he can.
It’s familiar, easily digestible and portrayed well on-stage. My gripe is with the rest of what’s going on throughout the show’s acts.
Amongst the brother’s spat, there’s an overarching conflict about screenplays and scripts that had me very confused.
Saul, a hotshot producer played by Dallas junior Alexander Christian, is the cherry on top for the brothers. Saul initially planned on signing a deal with Austin, who has been working on a script for a romance movie meant to be shown on the big screen. However, when Lee’s incessant rambling and slick way of talking doesn’t stop even when Austin begs, he manages to snatch Saul right out of Austin’s grip with talk of his movie script. Mind you, this isn’t a script that has already been written, rather a story that Lee seems to be making up while he talks about it.
Lee’s story is about cowboys, a “true western,” he claims. True western, “True West”…get it?
But I feel like this plot point was pretty underwhelming, to say the least. I wasn’t a part of the Hollywood scene in Los Angeles in the early 1980s, so I can’t exactly say that this wouldn’t have been a major conflict at the time happening to everyone – but in my opinion, it didn’t offer much to the story between Lee and Austin.
Their issues don’t lie with movies, scripts and big producers, they lie with each other. And while it’s necessary to have something other than themselves present to set this conflict ablaze, I think that it needed a bit more to work. More substance, something higher at stake. Maybe I’m just used to grand displays in media, but I think it would have made the content feel a lot edgier. For a play that gets so intense emotionally and physically, I don’t think that’s completely unwarranted!
Now, I’m no playwright, and perhaps my interpretation of Shephards’ literary genius is wrong, but as an audience member, I truly think that the play has plenty of layers that could pull back and reveal really interesting dynamics! But I also think that the plot might’ve fallen short just a smidge.
I’m Not a Harsh Critic, I Swear!
On a lighter note, I did find many elements of the play both funny and captivating.
The set, for one, was super detailed. From the miscellaneous magnets on the fridge to the trimmings on the wallpaper, it reminded me a lot of evenings spent in the living rooms of childhood friends back in Arizona.
I also really enjoyed the slightly unhinged parts of both Lee and Austin. Lee presents himself as fairly feral from the start, knocking back beer cans like nobody’s business. But seeing Austin slowly reveal himself to be not that much different from his brother, I was intrigued. It’s always a delight to see characters’ fatal flaws get unveiled the further their story progresses.
If you’re a sibling, a potential thief, have your fair share of parental issues or maybe just a lover of toast, pop on over to the Black Box Theater and catch a showing of “True West” before it’s gone! Upcoming shows are: Tomorrow at 7:30 p.m, Friday at 7:30 p.m and Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
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