True West

Photo: Idil Sukan

Exposing the cracks in the American Dream, Sam Shepard’s fiery domestic drama about the sibling rivalry between two brothers will star Eugene O’Hare (The Caretaker) and ex-Eastender ‘Britain’s most-hated soap villain’, Alex Ferns (most recently seen in Glasgow as Jimmy Boyle in The Hardman). Read more …

Austin ‘the achiever’, an earnest screenwriter on the verge of success, is working on a script he has sold to a Hollywood producer while house-sitting for his mother in LA. When his brother Lee ‘the drifter’ and petty thief decides to stop by, he pitches his own idea for a movie and convinces the producer to ditch Austin’s love story for his own trashy Western tale. Now they must work together to secure the deal. But with mistrust and jealousy bubbling under the surface, their own flaws threaten to get in the way.

The critical consensus

It’s through this maelstrom of tragic feeling and grotesque laughter that Phillip Breen tries to navigate his new production of Shepard’s 1980 play True West, for the Citizens’ Theatre; and if the journey hits a few sandbanks, it still remains a tremendously vivid and disturbing experience.

(*) Joyce McMillan, 02/11/2013

To its credit it resists the urge to wrap the whole thing up in a nice package for us and leaves the audience, as all good theatre should, wanting more. Explosive, exhilarating and electrifying, True West is true class.

Lauren Humphreys, The Public Reviews, 01/11/2013

We laugh, but our laughter is chilling.

(*) Mark Fisher, The Guardian, 05/11/2013

If you can get yourself through to the Dear Green Place before 16 November when the run ends, this show is worth lassoing.

(*) Irene Brown, Edinburgh Guide, 10/11/2013

While it’s framed in a beautifully filmic way, this descent into madness does not make for easy viewing. It is exhausting and uncomfortable. After watching True West, I went home and ate some toast. After such craziness, it seemed the only thing to do.

Susannah Radford, The Skinny, 12/11/2013