True West

I saw Sam Shepard’s True West done by Porch Couch Productions at Red Curtain Foundation for the Arts last night in Marysville.

They gave the Saul character more agency. The way I had read it and seen it previously, Saul was a weapon that the brothers, Lee and Austin, use in their fight against each other.

In this production, Saul is more active. In his first scene, he expresses a sexual interest in Austin. This gives Lee yet another thing to try to steal from his brother. He steals Austin’s personal relationship with Saul, whatever it may have been, as well as their professional relationship.

This also calls into further question exactly what happened at the golf outing the next morning. The script already leaves it a little unclear whether Saul “liked [the] story, pure and simple” as Lee says, or whether Lee won a bet. Now it’s possible that Lee literally screwed Austin out of his job.

Later in the show, it’s clear that Saul has abandoned whatever interest he may have had in Austin’s script. At the same time, this raises doubts about whether Saul thought either of the brother’s ideas was ever worth anything.

Saul is a character that a show could treat like mom’s plants or the neighbor’s toasters – as something to be acted upon. Maybe this discussion is already part of True West lore but it’s all new to me. So, credit to Porch Couch Productions for creating a character that adds additional layers to this story that I had not seen.

Photo by me.

Originally published on my Facebook page on February 18, 2018. 

Edit: The photo went away, for some reason.