Word: austins
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...Kimmer negotiate a deal on the Western. Austin--whose own script has been junked to make way for Lee's--falls apart. He lies under the kitchen table swilling Jack Daniels, changes his pressed khakis and navy pullover for a sweaty. T-shirt and jeans, and finally gets out to prove himself on his brother's own terms Austin the Eastern-educated, the well-dressed, the content and successful, bets that he can steal a toaster...
...does. Austin's larcenous achievement serves as the vehicle for a favorite Shepard effect: the symbolic over-abundance of food-stuffs. In Buried Child vegetables from the backyard garden were heaped on the stage in Rubens-esque quantities. True West serves up toast made in the five toasters Austin steals. These masses of toast represent Austin's hostile offering of his own success in his brother's line of work...
...PLAY's title provides a key to the symbolism behind the fraternal conflict. Lee represents the true West, the land of cowboys and Indians and rugged individualism--which, according to Austin, has been entirely replaced by freeways and high-rises and Hollywood operatives. Austin cannot understand Kimmer's enthusiasm about Lee' movie, because it is a real holster-grabbing, double-barreled Western "I m the one who's in touch, not him?" Austin yells at Kimmer But the movie producer doesn't agree: he thinks Lee's plot has honest-to-goodness grit. "We make movies. American movies. Leave films...
...misplaced allegiances are not without justification, though. By denying his links with the West. Austin is seeking also to escape his and Lee's parents, who represent a warped flip side of the American dream. Their father, who remains offstage, is a drunkard who once put his false teeth in a doggie bag filled with chow mein, and then left the bag in a bar along a Mexican highway. Their mother, who returns from Alaska in the final scene, is perfectly tacky, uncomprehending, and well-meaning. She appears terribly excited because she read in a newspaper that Picasso is visiting...
Shepard at his best is galvanizing. It is impossible not to be affected by the conflict between Lee and Austin. But True West provides more than good dramatic tension, because its symbols endure. After years of trying, of registering heavy-handed, ponderous failures, Shepard has achieved a style that hits its mark. The West may be a thing of the past, or--as Shepard believes--it may endure because of the irrepressible nature of human beings. Whether or not the days of sheriffs and gunfights are over, Shepard himself wields a mean gun. His range is long, his sights...