Shepard's brothers ain't gonna work it out

Very few things in the world please me more than seeing a great play. And given the endless stream of theatrical productions the Yale community cranks out each week, one would think I'd never be unhappy. The ironic trouble is, as much as I want to be pleased, I'm a harsh critic. A play will either frustrate me or fail to engage me or confuse the hell out of me. But then there are the choice few shows that really, really get it—whatever "it" is—and those are the shows that remind me why I love theater. True West, I am happy to report, is one such production—undoubtedly the best I've seen all year.

KATIE ALDRICH/YH Johnny blushed. His brother had caught him writing a 'fantasy' story about the female trolls of 'Dungeons & Dragons.'

The play is the story of two brothers, Lee (James DuRuz, TD '03), a nomadic and confrontational redneck, and Austin (Dave Mount, SY '03), a meek, Ivy League educated writer desperately attempting to draft a "real" screenplay while housesitting for their mother. It may sound like the basis for a stale sibling rivalry drama, but playwright Sam Shepard crafts the two men so well that we question the inner workings of their relationship not because we don't believe it, but precisely because we do.

Director Adam Chanzit, TD '03, owes much to Shepard for getting him off to a very good start before he even cast the show. No matter how talented the director and his cast are, a bad play will always be a bad play. But Chanzit clearly knows a good script when he sees one. True West combines a simple story with a complex fraternal relationship and well-grounded, conversational dialogue. The characters pause naturally, interrupt one another freely, and discuss matters as trivial as grocery shopping without forcing some greater significance upon their words. Shepard's fine foundation laid, DuRuz and Mount take the production to the next level, effortlessly communicating every subtlety of the playwright's language as if it had been their own.

The play opens with a quiet tension, Lee leaning against a kitchen counter, Bud Light in hand, questioning a distracted Austin about the contents of their mother's refrigerator. Their dialogue is uninvolved and disjointed, and it gives one the impression that, despite their blood, the two know very little about each other. The tension builds, naturally, as they fight for psychological room in a very enclosed space.

Initially, the brothers are placed on opposite ends of the stage, positions they routinely resume throughout the play, like boxers in their respective corners, preparing for the next round. The two collide in a fury of insults and physical violence more and more frequently as the play unfolds, and the enclosed theater space of Nick Chapel enhances the force of their collisions.

But logistics aside, DuRuz and Mount are incomparable. They each bring perfect intonation, natural bearing, and self-awareness to Shepard's already complex characters. Mount's Austin is passive, awkward, and almost disturbingly civilized, ending half of his lines with a nervous "okay?" as if uncertain of the legitimacy of his words. DuRuz's Lee, on the other hand, is frenzy personified—threatening yet tormented, manipulative yet defensive, and always in need of an audience. Together, they rule the stage with a visceral authenticity that I had not yet seen at the amateur level. Their personalities wage war throughout, at first sporadically and passively. The beauty of the fight, though, is not in its escalation, but in its stalemate: neither wins and neither loses. For this is not a triumph of one brother over the other, nor is it a reconciliation of differences. Shepard is too realistic to give the brothers such a definitive resolution.

What is so wonderful about the show is the degree to which the truth infiltrates the production. Not only is it the thing that the characters blindly seek, it is also the thing that the playwright, the director, and, most importantly, the actors, knowingly achieve. In their volatile yet honest way, they create a very real story, one that is 10 times more authentic than the script their characters struggle to write.

It is in the midst of this struggle that Lee speaks what are, perhaps, the play's defining words. Dictating his "true" Western to Austin, Lee solemnly sketches out a chase scene: "The one who's chasin,' he doesn't know where he's bein' led. And the one who's bein' chased, he doesn't know where he's goin'." And we hear in his voice and in the simple paradox of the sentence that the story he tells is, in fact, a true one. But it is not a story about cowboys chasing one another on horses as they ride across Tornado Country. Rather, it is the story of two brothers, one running, one following, and neither one sure of himself or the other.

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