By Ariana Estrada
The play True West, by playwright Sam Shepard, is situated twenty miles from Los Angeles and San Gabriel, California. In it, brothers Austin (Jordan Rashdan) and Lee (Joseph McLean) are trying to navigate who they are while caught between alcoholism and a bad family dynamic. Yet this play goes beyond the two brothers, hinting at the idea that there are multiple identities hidden within us. The play is driven by humorous lines and the characters exhibiting emotional switches when exploring their identities; but suffers by promoting the unrealistic idea that every household needs a woman to maintain the home.
The Princeton Summer Theater’s production of True West, directed by Wasif Sami, begins with Austin typing on his typewriter in a room filled with yellow, dimmed lighting. Suddenly Lee bursts into the kitchen after coming back from his home in the desert, causing a commotion. He grabs a beer from the fridge and makes himself at home. This distracts Austin from the script he is writing, and Lee scares Austin into writing a Wild West script for him after throwing beer cans across the kitchen and screaming in Austin’s face. As Lee bangs on counters and backs his brother into a corner, the audience becomes similarly fearful, practically jumping out of their sets. Lee creates a sense of suspense about what is going to happen next — will he act with his anger and become violent?
Later, the brothers create a mess, spreading papers all over the floor, spilling beer and scattering cans all around the kitchen. According to the director, the mess in the kitchen was meant to represent a home without a mother present. However, not every household has a mother, and many parents do not raise irresponsible men. The irresponsibility is not because households do not have a woman present, but rather because of the incapabilities of some parents who raise kids. Shepard was raised in an unstable household and struggled with alcoholism, the same as his father. Shepard’s mother and father were present in his childhood and he still went down a difficult path. Whether or not you have certain parents in your life, it is unrealistic to blame them for your actions. I believe that the director should have recontextualized the play in order to accommodate modern times and realities.
As the play continues, the brothers switch their goals. Lee is attempting to create a Western script while Austin wants to explore the desert, steals toasters and operates chaotically. It fits in with the constant theme of the brothers attempting to conquer each other’s lives. The actors embody Shepard’s play by successfully etching self-identity as a deeper theme of the play. Yet the ideas behind the set, and ideas of household as espoused by the director, are outdated and could be offensive to viewers.
The Princeton Summer Journal 