Sam Shepard's Early Career

Sam Shepard's Career

• Shepard's career began in the mid-1960s with the production of bizarre and anti-realistic plays in experimental off-off-Broadway theaters like La Mama and Theatre Genesis.
• A 1967 review by Michael Smith in the Village Voice is generally credited to have launched Shepard's career as a playwright.
• Mainstream critics & audiences were drawn to Shepard after Smith gave enthusiastic reviews for Cowboys and The Rock Garden, two of his early plays in 1964.
• Shepard had over 30 one-act plays to his credit by 1976, establishing him as a cult figure.
• Shepard developed his major plays which focused on dysfunctional families and social fringe dwellers, including Curse of the Starving Class (1977) and Buried Child (1978).
• These later plays displayed a more conventional approach to plot and character, contrasting his earlier works.
• In 1980 True West was released, when Shepard's popularity had greatly broadened
• Many critics considered Shepard at the forefront of new American playwrights, defining a new decade of theatre along with dramatists such as David Mamet, Marsha Norman, and Beth Henley.
• True West represents a continued movement toward realistic characterization, plot, setting, and dialogue while retaining unusual, fantastical elements.
• Grotesque violence and the startling transformations of its two main characters are elements of his experimental days.
• The later plays are considered examples of "magical realism", in which realistic characters and situations gradually acquire more bizarre qualities, fusing realism and fantasy.
• True West was hailed as a breakthrough, successfully melding experimental drama with conventional elements of modern theatre.
• True West is among Shepard's most accessible dramas but maintains the unmistakable signature of his earlier adventurous work.
• True West premiered on December 23, 1980, at Joseph Papp's Public Theater in New York.
• The play gained prominence when revived by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, which later brought it back to New York for a televised presentation in 1984.
• John Malkovich and Gary Sinise were the lead actors for Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the televised production.
• Tommy Lee Jones and Peter Boyle were included in the original New York cast.
• Shepard's play was short lived, closing on January 11, 1981.
• The play went on to be a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1983.
• The play examines the dual nature of man, which Shepard believed was not easily overcome.
• Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly famously switched roles in the 2000 production.
• True West has been produced internationally and state-side with actors Anthony Sher and Mark Rylance.

True West Plot Review

• Austin is house-sitting at his mother's house 40 miles east of Los Angeles while she is in Alaska.
• Austin is working on his screenplay.
• Lee, Austin's older brother, arrives after not seeing each other in years.
• Austin tries to pacify the tension with his dominating brother, Lee.
• Austin suggests Lee departs, and when he does not, Lee threatens to steal from neighbors to which Austin calls for a truce.
• The next day Austin asks Lee to leave with an important Hollywood producer examining his screenplay, however Lee demands Austin hand over his car keys to which he reluctantly agrees.
• Saul arrives, shortly followed by Lee.
• Lee hijacks Saul resulting in he and Saul agreeing to golf the next day while Austin is excluded for his lack of golfing ability.
• Saul endorses Lee's screenplay resulting in Austin having to write the script, much to his jealousy.
• Lee returns with his golfing partner Saul.
• Lee is promised an advance for the story and outlines his screenplay to Austin.
• Lee tells Austin that he must write the screenplay to which Austin opposes, revealing his own work.
• Austin learns that his screenplay is dropped in favor of Lee's.
• Austin becomes angry and promises to leave to the desert, leaving Lee to write the screenplay himself.
• Saul arrives accusing Saul of choosing Lee's idea because he lost a bet on the golf course to Lee with Saul offering to write with Austin, which he declines resulting in Saul seeking another writer for Lee's story.
• Lee and Saul make lunch plans as Saul departs.
• Austin is drunk as Lee attempts to write his screenplay with Austin eventually joining in drinking
• Lee polishes toasters he stole from neighbors, while Lee smashes typewriter with Lee offering a woman companionship to Austin which he declines which leads to discussion about taking him to the desert if can write screenplay, which he declines, leading to agreement to work together.
• Austin and Lee's mother returns from Alaska, to which Austin wants to go to the desert which Lee thinks will not work out, resulting in Austin attacks Lee and their Mother fleeing house, thinking Austin has killed Lee until he is found alive.

True West Scenes

• Scene 1: Night: Austin, a neatly dressed man in his early thirties, is working on a screenplay per candlelight while his older brother Lee, is mildly drunk with a beer in hand. Lee reveals that he intends to burglarize the houses in the neighborhood.
• Scene 2: Morning: While Austin waters his mother's plants, Lee says he scouted houses to burgle the night before. Austin says the movie producer is visiting, and Lee agrees to leave for Austin's car.
• Scene 3: Afternoon: Austin meets with Saul Kimmer, a Hollywood movie producer, Saul agrees to golf with Lee, and Lee tells Kimmer a contemporary Western movie.
• Scene 4: Lee dictates his story to Austin. Lee expresses his dreams of income and amenities. Austin envies the excitement of Lee's life, while Lee is struggling to type with one finger.
• Scene 5: Lee discusses golf with Saul Kimmer. Saul enjoyed outline, so Lee gives set up in exchange for being the advance.
• Scene 6: Kimmer chooses Lee's story, saying he has "raw talent", offers Austin to use father's life to set a trust fund. Austin claims west does not exist anymore.
• Scene 7: Austins polishes toasters, while Lee is burning Lee pages of new script. Lee wants to woman companionship, while Austin wants to move to the desert
• Scene 8: Lee's typewriter gets destroyed and Austin steals toasters.
• Scene 9: The house is full of debris. Lee insists he's given up on screenplay, while trying to take mother's authentic China to take to the desert to which Austin strangling Lee.

True West Character List

• Austin: A screenwriter, Lee's younger brother, college-educated, owns a home, and is making a name in the entertainment industry. He is watching his mother's home while she is in Alaska.
• Lee: Austin's older brother, a drifter, didn't go to college, and has few possessions. He has lived in the desert and has just visited his father.
• Saul Kimmer: A Hollywood producer invited to Austin's mother's home to negotiate a screenplay deal. He enlists Austin to write Lee's story after golfing with Lee, catalyst leading to greater conflict.
• Mom: She is only on stage for a short period of time, destruction helps us understand Austin and Lee who are left alone to fend for themselves.

True West Analysis of the Play

• True West is about transformation, where Austin becomes like Lee and vice versa.
• They two men meet at a common ground and Austin nearly kills his brother but is scared at the beginning of the play.
• Sam Shepard examines the double nature of human being as a result of being abandoned by their parents.
• One brother seems to have it all, while the other seems to have fallen off the rails.
• They believe that they are based on their success in life.
• How they deal with is to runaway into a metaphorical desert or go on a vacation where house is torn down.
• Two men transform expression of rage against one another and betrayal of screenplay, and betrayal of trust
• The play ends with choice, kill another, what to work thru pain, hope and good for the future

True West Themes

• New and Old West: The two faces allude to the American dream. while Austin represents, and Lee represents desert old. Desert and city are motifs relating and society. Confusion is needed for the american man.
• Fragmented American masculinity: masculinity and shifting identities from culture. Identity fades. The West is explained way man hood show insecurities. Image son relationship forms decendants and masculinity.

True West Symbols

• Desert: it represents no growth barren and isolated is symbol having himself.
• Vacation: symbolizes abandonment
• Toasters: is a symbol of no longer abides society
• Fathers teeth: symbol losing himself.
• On a bet: symbol frivolity

True West Metaphors

• No one disappear: no one hides themselves. must
• He lost his teeth: losing ability of speaking and brings into existence
• A bet: Hollywood betrayed truth

True West Irony

• Runing Out: mom watches her and will let it.
• Failure: in,he's desensitized
• Promise: will take it

True West Imagery

• In a bar: valuable chop
• Coyotes:: wildness impeding comes .

True West Literary Elements

• Point of View Austin
• Tone Violent
• Protagonist/Antagonist: Austin/lee
• Major Conflict: Script lee saol
• Climax script what is
• Foreshadows. Keys give.