Opposites attack in Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play about two brothers with more in common than they think.
Broadway fireworks don't get more combustible than this powerhouse new production - on Broadway through March 17 only. Two of this generation's hottest actors face off as estranged brothers in an empty California home, and the sparks truly fly. The New York Times says, "Ethan Hawke delivers a faultless performance, probably his best ever onstage," and The Wall Street Journal says, "everything Paul Dano does is excitingly surprising." Don't miss director James MacDonald's suspenseful, smoldering True West. "It's as funny as it is serious, as entertaining as it is profound" (New York Stage Review).
James Macdonald directs Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano in the play's first Broadway revival, with set design by Mimi Lien, costume design by Kaye Voyce, lighting design by Jane Cox, hair & wig design by Tom Watson, and original music & sound design by Bray Poor.
Macdonald extracts humour from the play but the outlandish disintegration in the second act does not quite come off, in part due to Dano's reticence. His introspective approach works well in the first act, but he is less convincing when he lets loose. Hawke, however, is superb. His Lee is a lizardy con man with limited hustle who's desperately playing his only hand. Belly jutting out, covered in sweat and filth like nothing could ever wash him clean, Hawke physically digs into the role. With an obscene finger gesture or a subtle slump in his posture, he alternatively radiates helplessness, shame, innocence, predation.
Hawke and Dano - who've both received accolades recently for the film First Reformed and the Showtime series Escape at Dannemora, respectively - do an excellent job going round for round, playing into the comedic moments of their fighting, and director James Macdonald gives the play a cinematic touch by using music and a picture-frame effect of bright lights around the stage between scenes. (The costumes, by Kaye Voyce, get more disheveled as the action ramps up.) But while watching them go at it is entertaining, what the play is fighting for isn't as clear. There are themes of sibling rivalry and family strife (their father, unseen but spoken of, is a drunk living alone out in the desert), the idealized lawlessness of the Wild West, the way Hollywood deals are done and just as easily undone. But all those questions are left unanswered, with strewn beer cans and dead plants to show for all the debate.
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