True West is a modern masterpiece. Sam Shepard’s darkly humorous and disturbing 1980 play pits estranged brothers against one another in their mother’s suburban Los Angeles home while she’s away. Joey Folsom’s Classics Theatre Project is putting on a new production starring Folsom as Austin, a well-educated screenwriter, husband and father, and Clay Yocum as the older Lee, a drifter and thief. Austin is working on a new script and expecting a film producer, but Lee keeps distracting him. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other in five years. Things go awry and eventually turn violent as Shepard wrestles with issues like sibling rivalry, masculinity and the meaning of success.
In the decades since its San Francisco premiere, productions have featured such notable pairings as Peter Boyle and Tommy Lee Jones off Broadway, John Malkovich and Gary Sinise at Steppenwolf in Chicago (filmed for PBS’ American Playhouse series in 1984) and Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly in the play’s 2000 Broadway debut. Dallas’ Kitchen Dog Theater produced True West in 1997, starring two of the company’s founders, Dan Day and Joe Nemmers. The Classic Theatre Project cast includes Michael Miller as the producer and Allyn Carrell as the brothers’ mom, who returns to find her house wrecked.
Details
Through Aug. 24 at the Stone Cottage Theatre, 15650 Addison Road, Addison. $20-25. theclassicstheatreproject.com.
![Clay Yocum stars as Lee in Classic Theatre Project's production of Sam Shepard's "True West."](https://dmn-dallas-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/MNO5RDJ755AZ7IERI6RSVFJ734.jpg?auth=1dc1b5b2de8df3048285e6fde5a4a5c5eb127806ce73351f5c698d9ea422035a&width=430&quality=80)
![Joey Folsom stars as Austin in Classic Theatre Project's production of Sam Shepard's "True...](https://dmn-dallas-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com/resizer/v2/X2ULWFKTR5CFBA4Q75LN4B2QB4.jpg?auth=8a2c3bda8330a87847839d162a78def36db260bc3c544debb86274027f41cbc6&width=430&quality=80)