A powerful theatre piece that originated in White Rock last year is being remounted for a run at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre.
The savagely intense dark comedy True West – by late American playwright Sam Shepard – will run from Tuesday, Aug. 1 to Sunday, Aug. 6 with 8 p.m. evening shows only at the ‘Cultch’s’ 74-seat Vancity Culture Lab at 1895 Venables St.
Directed by White Rock resident actor-director Julianne Christie (whose most recent directorial assignment was Best Divorce Ever for the White Rock Players Club), the show features fellow city residents Harrison MacDonald and Jan Chadburn, as well as Vancouver-area actors Jesse Irving and Stephen JF Walker.
It’s virtually the same cast as the original production, which sold out at Peninsula Productions’ studio theatre last October, with the exception of Walker, last seen locally as the narrator in Best Divorce Ever, who steps into a supporting role previously acted by Tomas Gamba.
READ ALSO: Sam Shepard’s True West a notable showcase for actors
Considered by many the best playwright of his generation, Shepard, in True West, created an almost surreal drama of the conflict between two brothers.
Since its debut in 1980, it has become a noted showcase for actors, which is what drew MacDonald and Irving to suggesting the project and asking Christie to direct in the first place.
Their version doesn’t pull any punches in presenting a tale that functions as a metaphor for the modern American West – as well as a study in the unravelling of myths and the reality of the damage that can be done by family members past and present.
Last fall’s riveting production benefited from Christie’s subtle, probing examination of the material, as well as from brilliantly-sustained characterizations by MacDonald and Irving, as brothers Austin and Lee.
Also appealing was a suitably bemused performance by Chadburn as the mother who arrives home to find her carefully-constructed ‘reality’ in ruins.
But even for White Rock audiences who saw the show last year, the current version is likely to provide a powerful evening of drama, Christie said.
“It’s lovely to be able to go deeper into the play,” added the director, who for years has also been a busy player in many ‘Hollywood North’ film and television productions.
“I’ve always been quite envious of Broadway stars who have six months to work with a character, and say ‘every time I play her, I get to know her better’,” she added.
The production is proving an even closer bonding experience for director and actors this time around, she noted.
“As it’s just the five of us, the actors are realizing they don’t just show up and act – we’re a team now, we’re all building sets and making props and finding costumes.”
Christie said she and the cast have been excited by the opportunity to revisit the material for the VECC remount, and uncover even more layers of meaning in Shepard’s richly detailed, compelling script.
In True West, studious, industrious playwright, screenwriter and family man Austin (MacDonald) – using his mother’s immaculate southern California home as a place to write while she goes on a cruise to Alaska – finds his work disrupted and his life upended by the sudden arrival of his ne-er do well brother, Lee (Irving).
Almost before he knows what’s happening, Austin finds his passion project, being written for pragmatic Hollywood producer Saul Kimmer (Walker), has been shanghaied by expert con-man Lee, who sells Kimmer instead on a Western story supposedly inspired by true events.
Austin, and the violent, unpredictable Lee, become uneasy collaborators on the new screenplay commissioned by Kimmer, based on Lee’s story.
But the partnership quickly devolves into an increasingly drunken and destructive power struggle that imperils their mother’s meticulously-assembled home and drives Austin to the brink of insanity.
Driven by demons and unresolved antagonism – much of it the legacy of the brothers’ late, alcoholic father – their roles of ‘good son’ and ‘bad son’ begin to overlap, almost to the point of an exchange of personalities.
Shepard based True West and two other companion plays on his relationship with his own father, she noted – an alcoholic who, like his fictional counterpart “went off to live in the desert” and ultimately perished there.
The show has many points of relatability for audiences, she added, particularly as we come to recognize the lasting effects experiences we had in childhood still have on our lives today.
For tickets ($38.50 general admission) visit thecultch.com/event/true-west/ or call
alex.browne@peacearchnews.com
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