True West

Sam Shepard’s American classic, True West, explores alternatives that might spring from the demented terrain of the California landscape. Sons of a desert-dwelling alcoholic and a suburban wanderer seeking meaning in Alaska and Picasso clash over a film script. Austin, the achiever, is a college graduate and a professional screenwriter. He is staying at Mom’s near Los Angeles (instead of home with his own family) to work on a script he has sold to producer Sal Kimmer. Lee, a demented, desert-dwelling petty thief, drops in. He pitches his own idea for a movie to Kimmer, who then wants Austin to junk his bleak, modern-day California love story and write Lee’s archetypal-and trashy-western tale. Susan Marie Rhea directs.