Opposites attack in Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize-nominated play about two brothers with more in common than they think.
Broadway fireworks don't get more combustible than this powerhouse new production - on Broadway through March 17 only. Two of this generation's hottest actors face off as estranged brothers in an empty California home, and the sparks truly fly. The New York Times says, "Ethan Hawke delivers a faultless performance, probably his best ever onstage," and The Wall Street Journal says, "everything Paul Dano does is excitingly surprising." Don't miss director James MacDonald's suspenseful, smoldering True West. "It's as funny as it is serious, as entertaining as it is profound" (New York Stage Review).
James Macdonald directs Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano in the play's first Broadway revival, with set design by Mimi Lien, costume design by Kaye Voyce, lighting design by Jane Cox, hair & wig design by Tom Watson, and original music & sound design by Bray Poor.
But while 'True West' fails to add up to a convincing dramatic whole, it still works as a vehicle for two first-class actors, and the stars of this revival qualify. Mr. Hawke, who has the flashier of the two parts, comes on strong, occasionally over-egging the pudding (you get the feeling that he's enjoying himself a little too much) but nonetheless giving a performance in which you can smell the anger and envy leaching out of his pores. Mr. Dano, by contrast, is both subtler and more interesting: Here as in 'Love & Mercy,' he plays a character whose bland surface serves as camouflage for roiling interior turmoil, and everything he does in 'True West' is excitingly surprising.
If the charismatic Hawke all but wipes the floor with Dano in the play's first half, Dano gets his turn to act out in Act Two. These are showcase roles, and the actors play them with gusto. James Macdonald's Roundabout Theatre Company production occasionally errs on the side of the obvious: Marylouise Burke brings her customary off-kilter comic panache to her cameo as the brothers' late-returning mom, but Gary Wilmes smears an extra layer of grease on the already oleaginous role of a Hollywood producer, and a showy change of lighting undermines Austin's big story about how his dissolute father lost two pairs of teeth.
2000 | Broadway |
Broadway Revival Broadway |
West End |
West End Production West End |
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2018 | Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Company Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
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2019 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance Award | Ethan Hawke |
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