REVIEW: True West, Crucible Theatre
SAM Shepard's taut, explosive yet often funny drama transports us to a place where the atmosphere between estranged brothers Lee and Austin is almost as sticky as the weather.
The former is a street-wise, wilfully dark and antagonistic hustler back after years of living off his wits under the American social radar. "Don't worry about me. I'm not the one to worry about," he tells his more conventional sibling, a family man minding their vacationing mother's cricket-surrounded home.
The combination bristles with tension fuelled by envy and a damaged past, growing in volatility amid the promise of film studio money for a script Austin is writing, but Lee succeeds in hijacking.
So, two men initially of very different outlook reveal themselves as having more in common than they and we first realise to the extent that as the story progresses we witness a transformation, a swapping of characters as fortunes shift and inadequacies emerge. This 'swapping' is happening literally during the run as leading actors Nigel Harman and John Light (tonight playing Austin and Lee respectively) alternate roles.
It is a tantalising prospect, not least because of the physical differences between the men, to make director Paul Miller's cunning, challenging initiative more than a marketing gimmick.
Both men shine in display if not always their US accents and are coerced in their instability and destructive affront of each other by mercenary movie producer Saul Kimmer (real American John Schwab); yet regarded still as little more than squabbling boys by their returning Mom (Abigail McKern).
The driving force of the show is Shepard's economical, yet divisive language. Like Cormac McCarthy's prose, it is as crucial to setting and demeanour as the mundane kitchen scenery is in projecting Lee and Austin's frailties and loathing.
That kitchen becomes something of an arena for their spoken and increasingly physical battle aided by Austin's comical toaster kleptomania and a destructive phone call that on this occasion resulted in the receiver accidentally winding up in the ceiling fan.
This thrilling True West runs until June 5.
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