Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
Four stars
The cricket chirrups and increasingly loud coyote howls that punctuate
this all too rare revival of Sam Shepard's 1980 trawl through the dark
heart of America may sound real in Phillip Breen's production. In the
end, however, as Max Breen's cinema-scope design makes clear, we all
know it's as make-believe as a movie. The quest for authenticity is
what drives Eugene O'Hare's bookish Austin, who, on the verge of a
life-changing deal, has holed himself up in his mother's place, tapping
out an old-time love story in suburban bliss.
Austin's world is turned upside down when his deranged petty thief
brother Lee turns up out of the blue from his desert hidey-hole. Where
Austin peddles implausible dreams on the page, Lee's manic,
booze-soaked stories of a wilder world beyond convinces Steven Elliot's
hustler producer Saul to take a chance on his pop-eyed take on
blockbuster sensationalism over art. As the brothers' roles are
reversed in increasingly manic fashion, the veneer of civilisation
itself seems to collapse in on them as the domestic shell they're
occupying is smashed to pieces.
Originally produced at a time when the excesses of the 1960s-sired
generation of maverick film directors were about to be reined in and
horse-traded for something more formulaic, Shepard's play is now a
period piece from a pre laptop, pre YouTube age where even the most
independent auteur was working for the man. With explicit nods to
familial dysfunction via an absent father, Shepard's text is also shot
through with the myth-making extremes of Greek tragedy.
It's a relentless and increasingly demented ride, with Alex Ferns
driving the action as Lee with a ferocity which, when matched by
Austin's toaster-stealing routine as Lee batters the typewriter into
submission with a golf-club, looks like a wilfully absurdist parody.
Even their Mom, played by Barbara Rafferty with resigned whey-faced
acceptance, can't tell what's real anymore. As the two men square up to
each other while the stage fades to black, the call of the wild beyond
the fake four walls that bind them both may save them yet.
The Herald, November 4th 2013
ends
Comments