THEATRE REVIEW
Elden Street stays true with 'True West'
By Michael Birchenall
Weekender Theater Critic
Weekender, Pg 11-12
The Herndon Times
Times Community Newspapers
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
Opening a season means for many performing groups a must-opportunity for
gathering in the faithful with a "safe" production that will entertain
and amuse - it could be a musical (something we know all the songs for) or a
play with a mystery or twist to turn on the lights for a few brain cells.
Not Elden Street Players (ESP). Herndon's community theater group
presents Sam Shepard's savage, extreme look inside the souls of two brothers
during an absurdly disturbing moment in time for their lives. Director
(and ESP's artistic director) David Sher rips open the pages of the Shepard play
and let's them spill onto the set of "True West" with a ferocity not
often seen in community theater.
This is not a play where the audience can find many places to hide. Oh,
there's a moment or two when the absurdity, the exaggeration releases a laugh.
And then there is the intermission, a 15-minute period - not for a beverage this
time, but for a moment to regain one's collective thoughts and gain the courage
to see this experience through. The couple next to me couldn't handle it well -
there's always television to candy-coat human emotion.
Guzzling beers, the polarized brothers trade stinging insults, eventually
careers and identities in a relentless march to what some might see as an
existential nothingness. Abrasive in their attitudes and actions, their
interaction strips away the facade of the American dream in which hard work
leads to success and generous, material benefits.
Sher has kept the edge on the Shepard play - made it razor sharp like the
knife Lee (William Aitken) keeps holstered on his belt.
Lee is a petty burglar and major loser. His brother Austin (Aaron Rothbart)
is the opposite as an ivy-league educated screenwriter, he holds his dream
within his carefully structured, focused lifestyle.
Aitken, as Lee, gives an over-the-top interpretation, within the scope of the
Shepard intent and Sher's guidance. His character had no warmth or appeal until
a brilliantly subtle change in the two brothers' lives in the second act.
At that moment, Aitken is attempting to write his own screenplay of a true
western, while his brother, now drunk, is contemplating stealing toasters.
Aitken is confident of his acting skill and gives himself up for the sake of the
play. He's incisively strong in the role -- even brilliant at times.
Rothbart, as Austin, is younger, slighter in build and bravado, but just as
disturbed by his position in life, as juxtaposed against his brother. His acting
follows the course an incline elevator moving up the side of a mountain marked
by jagged terrain - slowly moving up, but before you know it, you've reached the
peak.
Rothbart takes you along a path that eventually surpasses the absurdity of
his brother.
His final scene (without destroying the moment for those seeing "True
West" for the first time) is as powerful a reading as any I've seen on the
community stage.
Jake Call as Saul Kimmer, the producer, is piercingly accurate in his
portrayal of the Hollywood caricature -- the shallow, mindless money man.
Mary Ann Hall, in her brief moments on stage as the mother of these
dysfunctional offspring, gives us a good indication that the boys' inner
struggle and confusion had genetic ties. The mother is lonely; a few shades shy
of seeing true colors or connecting a firm vision. She has been running on
empty, with her houseplants as companions, for some time.
Combat choreography by Adam Konowe is rich and realistic in its imagery and
impact.
Now if you expect all to become wonderful at the end, then this won't be your
vision of entertainment. The struggle of these characters won't fade away - they
don't go quietly into a brilliant sunset on the edge of a tantalizing dessert on
their magnificent horses. They run out of gas in the panhandle and struggle to
make their next outrageous search for the American dream with the smell of toast
wafting through the turbulent atmosphere. See it!
'True West'
WHERE: Elden Street Players at The Industrial Strength Theatre, 269 Sunset
Business Park, Herndon
WHEN: Oct. 26, 27, 28 (evening); Nov 2, 3, 4, 9, 10 (evening)
CURTAIN: 8 p.m., 7 p.m. (Sundays)
TICKETS: $12 adult, $10 seniors and students
season: $52, $42 (seniors)
NEXT: "Threepenny Opera." Jan 25, 26, Feb 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16
INFORMATION: 703-481-5930
WEB: www.eldenstreetplayers.org
© 2001 Times Community Newspapers
