Sam Shepard's

Sam Shepard's greatest success has come with three related plays,united by the theme of family discord,written in the late seventies:Curse of the Starving Class,Buried Child , and True West.These plays confirmed his reputation as the most gi 858o144i fted dramatic writer of his generation. Shepard's characters struggle to define and assert their identities.The resulting tensions,especially between brothers and between fathers and sons,is a major theme.Often the personalities of characters are merged,or they switch places as Austin and Lee do in True West.

True West was first performed at the Magic Theare in San Francisco,where Shepard was the resident playwright.

The play is about two brothers.Austin is an ambitious screenwriter and Lee is a thief.Austin is in Southern California at his mother's house,working on a screenplay.Lee arrives at the house.Lee's only interest at first is to rob the houses in his mother's neighbourhood.Before the action of the play Lee spent a few months out on the desert with a fighting pit bull.Austin asks Lee to be out of the house when a movie producer comes.Lee agrees and asks for the car keys.While the producer,Saul Kimmer is still in the kitchen with Austin,Lee returns,carying a stolen television.

Rather than leave,Lee talks about golf and convinces Saul to take a look at the outline of a story he has been thinking.

That night,Austin helps his brother to type out a ridiculous scenario involving two men chasing each other through"Tornado Country".They stay up late into the night working on the outline for Saul Kimmer.

The next day after the golf game Lee comes home in high spirits,very happy because Saul has agreed to produce Lee's project and drop Austin's.Saul wants Austin to write the screenplay for Lee's ridiculous Western.Austin at first does not believe the strange turn of events,but Saul comes to their house and explains the situation.That night the brothers seem to have changed.Austin

gets horribly drunk while Lee tries to type out the screenplay.The brothers discuss the fact that Saul might think that the two brothers are the same person.Austin tells Lee that he can't write the play while Lee tells Austin that he can't steal a toaster.

As the action of the play continues the brothers gradually begin to transform into one another.This transformation is marked by extensive talk about their father,who lives in the desert.The Old Man never appears on stage but has a powerful influence over the entire play.They both have his genes,habits,and inclinations and they also want to escape the traps of modern life and to move out on the desert.

In the first fragment Mom arrives home from her trip to Alaska.She sees her kitchen ruined.The brothers not sure what to do they ask Mom about her trip.Austin tells her that they are celebrating because Lee sold a screenplay.Mom is shocked that Lee sold a screenplay and not Austin.The two brothers effectively switch roles.Austin tells her that they are going to live out on the desert.The desert is a predominant motif in the play,representing the promise of life outside.The desert has an almost supernatural attraction for both brothers and their father.On the desert anything is possible and where one can form a new identity.

In the second fragment Mom tells that she came back from Alaska because she missed her houseplants.She notices that all her plants are dead.The houseplants in Mom's kitchen are symbols of order.Austin's only job while he lives in her mother's house to water the flowers.For a while he does his job.But as Austin begins to realize that the ideals he has and the identity he has formed for himself are contrary to what he believes.

Mom tells that somebody very famous is coming in the town,is about Picasso. Austin tells her that Picasso is dead but she doesn't believe.Mom is the only absurd character in the play.She is completely powerless over her boys,even when she is on the scene.

Although Austin has tried very hard to escape the influence of his family,all of his attempts have failed.He has tried to get a sense of identity from his work but in the end they are all meaningless in relation to the identity formed for him in the family.Austin tries to deny that he is part of the family but in the end he cannot.In the end of the play he is exactly like his brother and both of them are like his father.Austin realizes that his entire identity which,since his youth has focused on achieving this dream is completely wrong.What is right is to form an identity on one's own terms.For Austin that means giving up everything he has worked for and retreat ,move away from it to the desert.

"I wanted to write a play about double nature",said Sam Shepard.

Bibliography:

Sam Shepard,True West

MACMILLAN English Dictionary.