Style Weekly: The Lonesome Crowded West
Landon Nagel and Stevie Rice star in Cadence Theatre Company's "True West." In a rare move, the actors will trade roles during the run of the show. Photos by Scott Elmquist.
Originally published by Style Weekly
by Rich Griset
September 19, 2024
Five years in the making, Cadence Theatre Company’s “True West” serves up Sam Shepard’s dark comedy about sibling rivalry and the legacy of the American West.
The first time Rusty Wilson helped stage “True West,” Sam Shepard’s dark comedy about sibling rivalry between two brothers, Bruce Willis played a joke on him.
In Idaho’s Company of Fools’ 2001 production of the play, Wilson played percussion during the scene changes while sitting atop a 15-foot scaffolding.
“We brought up all these crazy percussive things like tailpipes from cars and elements from drum sets,” Wilson recalls. “As the intensity of the play picked up from scene to scene, so did the intensity of the percussive elements, [helping] build the tension in the play itself.”
That production, which was eventually filmed by Showtime, featured Willis and Chad Smith as the brothers. During rehearsals, Smith and the “Die Hard” star would leave for an extended period during a big scene change, forcing Wilson to drum wildly for minutes without a break.
“I would be almost ready to fall off my chair by the time they came out for the next scene,” Wilson says.
This time around will be less physically demanding for Wilson; instead of slapping the skins, he’s sitting in the director’s chair for Cadence Theatre Company’s upcoming production of Shepard’s masterpiece. Relating the story of two estranged brothers, “True West” is a dark comedy about the curse of ancestry, the fallibility of the American dream and the meaning of the American West.
“The play takes place in the brothers’ mom’s house,” Wilson explains. “One brother is a successful screenwriter. The other brother is a petty thief. They ultimately come to crisis around those two things.”
Wilson, who has directed Shepard’s “Buried Child” and performed in “Fool for Love” and “Suicide in B♭,” says that “True West” is Shepard’s best.
“It’s a monster play,” he says. “It’s quite an experiment in holding a mirror up to ourselves, particularly men. I think Shepard really wanted to explore the dual natures of men.”
Nagel, Rice and Jane Petkofsky in the Cadence Theatre Production of “True West.”
Cadence’s production of “True West” has been years in the making. Auditions were held in August 2019; postponed because of the pandemic and other life events, the show has had a five-year journey from page to stage. Landon Nagel and Stevie Rice star as the brothers and will trade roles during the show’s run.
“There aren’t that many productions that have been done that way, but we thought we’d just go for it because we have two really strong actors,” Wilson says. “Physically, they’re both in the same ballpark, so they could both play either role.”
Austin/Lee pairings have attracted big names in the past, including Tommy Lee Jones/Peter Boyle, Gary Sinise/John Malkovich, real-life brothers Dennis Quaid/Randy Quaid, John C. Reilly/Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Paul Dano/Ethan Hawke; in their staging, Reilly and Hoffman also traded roles.
Both Nagel and Rice say that when they started working on the play, they initially identified more with Lee, the petty thief who represents the chaos of the old West; as they’ve worked on the show, both actors have come to view themselves more as Austin, who represents the order of the new suburban West and has more of the dramatic arc in the show. Rice, who is the first person in his family to graduate from high school and is currently working on his doctorate, says Austin’s upward mobility has special resonance for him.
Ultimately, Nagel contends, the show is about two brothers trying to connect.
“Both men are lonely in their own way and grapple with their own definition, their own disconnection,” says Nagel, who most recently starred in “Doctor Faustus” during the Richmond Shakespeare Festival this summer at Agecroft Hall. “When you get right down to it, it’s just two brothers trying to love one another, and their love language is fucked.”
Through their years of rehearsals, Nagel says he and Rice have forged a brotherly bond — in a positive way. That bond has included Nagel and his son visiting Rice in South Carolina to rehearse.
“We workout together,” Nagel says. “We eat together. He’s been trying to get me in better shape, so we do Crossfit, and we’ve just become really, really close.”
Rice says the show’s mining of familial discord will be relatable to all audiences.
“It’s going to be authentic,” he says. “It has happiness in it, even though it’s a dark comedy. There are moments of levity. There are moments of tears. There are moments of vitriol. It’s going to give you a full range of emotions.”