True West

 

Of all of Sam Shepherd's plays, True West may be his best-known work. A case could be made for Fool For Love or Buried Child, but part of the lore around True West comes from the Steppenwolf production 37 years ago with John Malkovitch and Laurie Metcalf directed by Gary Sinise. The original staging in New York hadn't been particularly well-received, but the Steppenwolf production gave both the theater company and the play considerable attention. The staging that Y and I saw in Galway was also a Steppenwolf production, this time with two black actors in the lead roles of Austin and his brother Lee. While originally written and produced with white actors, the use of black actors gives some aspects of the play new power. Early on there is talk of Lee breaking into homes and stealing. A comment is made about him prowling a neighborhood like their mothers'. Given the stereotypes and stories of black men seen as suspicious, these lines take on additional weight. There is also something added to the dynamic of Lee hustling the producer Saul on the golf course and the assumptions about who can and can't play golf. 

The most gratifying part of our experience was sharing it with Y. He's been to a couple of plays with me now. He really like this one, even if he didn't quite understand the ending. To be fair, I'm not sure I quite understand it. 

Then yesterday I came to Dublin with Grace and got the chance to see Rob Bell. The theater didn't have A/C and it was one of the hottest days on record, still, it was interesting to see Rob in person. There was far less production value to this talk than Introduction to Joy, but I always appreciate hearing him think and apply what it means to say that Everything is Spiritual. Everything- thoughts, feelings, cells, even stars, and planets rise and then fade away. To step back and observe this without letting it control us is to embrace the spiritual truth of an eternal kind of seeking in the I-ness, now-ness, and here-ness of our lived experience.

I wonder how Lee and Austin's story might have looked different if they'd been able to step back from what both of them seem to want.