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Regional Reviews: Las Vegas True West
Shepard's play explores the relationship between the insecure Austin, a married screenwriter, and his loutish brother Lee, a drifter who lives rough in the California desert and burglarizes homes for pocket money. Austin is housesitting for their vacationing (and slightly batty) mother while awaiting a Hollywood producer's visit to seal the deal on his new project, when Lee arrives as an unwelcome guest. (Their unseen father, the "old man," is a destitute and toothless alcoholic spiralling toward death somewhere in the desert.) Lee delights in goading Austin, and their simmering hostility comes to a head when Lee pitches a puerile and cliché-ridden story to the producer, who declares it an "authentic" story of the West, abandoning Austin's well-crafted project for his brother's chimeric wisp of an idea. Mad with frustration–Lee can barely type, much less produce a screenplay, while Austin is desperate to prove that he, too, can be a tough guy–the brothers get increasingly physical. In A Public Fit's production, Wilam Fleming plays Austin as the aspirational and quintessentially middle-class male, trying to follow the accepted playbook for personal and professional success, knowing that he must please someone higher in the pecking order (his producer) in order to achieve his modest ambitions. Ryan Ruckman's rough-and-ready Lee lives only to please himself, treating other people's possessions as property he can commandeer at will. He functions on impulse, and what matters at one moment is forgotten soon after. (His one-time desert companion, a fighting pit-bull, was a "good dog" even though he can't remember what happened to it.) Both actors are convincing as brothers who repeatedly lock horns in futile attempts to prove their mettle. Although her time on stage is brief, Valerie Carpenter Bernstein makes a strong impression as the combatants' mother, returning early from her vacation only to come face to face with devastation. Ben Loewy also does a fine turn as Saul, the genially oily producer who measures authenticity in dollar signs. This is a feisty, gutsy production. Jake Staley's direction is well paced, and the brothers' power struggle unfolds naturalistically, as each vies for the alpha role. There is action even during the short blackouts between scenes, as the audience watches the brothers' silhouettes in pantomime against scenic designer Diane Walton's striking backdrop of endless desert, mountains and sky. In Shepard's hands, the rugged West becomes a metaphor for the unexamined life, bringing to mind the words of poet Robert Frost: "I have it in me so much nearer home/To scare myself with my own desert places." True West, presented by A Public Fit Theatre Company, runs through March 3, 2025, at SST Studios, 4340 S. Valley View Blvd., #210, Las Vegas NV. Performances are Friday, Saturday, and Monday at 7 pm, Sunday at 2 pm. Tickets are $35-45. For tickets and information, please visit www.apublicfit.org. Cast: Additional Creative: |
