Theatre in the Round - True West

I am so behind in blogging a few things I wanted to remember I did.  Maybe that's a good sign, that I'm more involved in getting out than in worrying about getting it written down/recorded.  Although I have to say that there's no shortage of video game and television time lately that proves otherwise.

The Friday before last, Jen and I went to True West at Theatre in the Round.  For the most part, it was a two person play.  Plus small appearances by a producer and the mother.  One brother who's a screenwriter house sitting for his mother.  Another brother who's a bit of a grifter who house crashes.  Both of them have something to prove to the other and it slowly, inexorably devolves into awfulness.

Both actors were great, but real props to the guy playing the grifter-ish brother.  He really sold the whole thing.  If you've got a brother, you can intuit a deep understanding for where this play probably came from.

Apparently True West is part of a trilogy or quintopoly of plays, depending on how you look at those things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_West_(play).  I suspect you get a real immersion into dysfunctional families if you double down on Shepard and anything Shirley Jackson-like in your concurrent reading [as I am].  I recommend the play.  It's appropriate that dark precedes comedy in the genre.