Word: austine
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Cinco de Mayo symbolizes the emergence of the Mexicans as a people, said Candelario Saenz, a visting scholar in social anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin. The Quincy House affiliate said that "the notion that Mexico belongs to the Mexicans... was forged" on Mexican independence day, Diez y Seis de Septiembre, and Cinco de Mayo, which commemorates the 1862 Battle of Puebla...
...Austin (Kevin Connell) is an uptight Ivy grad struggling desperately to sell his romantic "period piece" to a Hollywood producer. Lee, (Alex Norman) his older brother, is a macho, beer-guzzling thief with considerable disdain for Austin's sheltered intellectual life. When the brothers get holed up together in their mother's house, sparks fly. Insults fly. Silverware, toasters and golf clubs fly, too. By the end of Sam Shepard's True West, the kitchen is a disaster area worthy of any Harvard undergrad's living quarters. Not even the cast from Risky Business could clean up this mess before...
Connell's performance is also effective, although Norman's explosive presence dominates the stage. As Austin, he nicely portrays the character's outer conflict between halting his brother's moral decline and saving his own career. He also copes with his deeper problems of dealing with his unseen father's alcoholism and destitution and his own dissatisfaction with his staid family life...
...claustrophobic Kronauer space is ideal for Shepard's theme of escape, which is particularly prominent in True West in the brothers' arguments about the keys to Austin's car, their only means of exit. Director Jed Weintrob traps the audience in the kitchen with the two brothers and has captured the herky-jerky rhythm of Shepard's dialogue...
Weintrob's effective staging is evident in a pivotal scene where, to Austin's dismay, Lee barges in on his negotiations with Sol, (John Byrd) the effete producer. Austin's worst fears are confirmed, as Lee quickly wins Sol's friendship with good-natured masculine bombast. By the end of the scene, the brothers' mutual jealously has surfaced, and Weintrob has hidden Austin in the background, where his consternation is initially barely noticeable but soon becomes a focus of attention. Lee, however, has established himself as the "man of the house...