True West

Sam Shepard’s True West is a cleverly dark comedy that would be all too easy to overdo in all the wrong places. A less than shrewd production could miss the finesse of the original script, but the Spiral Theatre, in a tiny space on National Avenue, brings the right immediacy and intimacy to capture Shepard’s somewhat sinister humor with strikingly vivid form. In a testament to its growing prominence in local theatre, Spiral Theatre nearly sold out its 30+ capacity studio theatre on one of the coldest nights of the year. Spiral’s show is impressive, and while not all of the finer points of Shepard’s script are perfectly intact, the company manages to deliver an exceedingly enjoyable trip to the theatre.

Len Macki stars as Austin, a struggling screenwriter who is looking after his mother’s place while she is away in Alaska. He’s managed to secure a meeting at her place with an important Hollywood producer (Josh Wetzel) to pitch an idea for a love story. The only problem: his brash older brother (Terry Gavin) is staying with him and threatens to blow Austin’s one chance at getting the producer’s green light. Things begin to unravel when Austin’s brother convinces the producer that it would be a good idea for Austin to write a Western instead.

(Okay: Shepard’s plot is a lot better than it sounds in a few sentences. And if it’s not staged correctly, it’s every bit as cheesy as it sounds.)

Len Macki, comfortably at the center of the production, holds much of the production together. (He’s not prominent locally, but he’s been active elsewhere, most notably Madison.) He dynamically renders Austin’s emotional development over the course of the play, moving from one intricately realized moment to the next. When Austin loses composure and takes to drinking, his emotional collapse is palpable. When he’s clearly dropping pieces of toast into toasters that aren’t plugged in, it makes sense even, though the illusion isn’t complete. Everything that happens around Austin makes sense, even when the production doesn’t make anything clear, and for that, Macki is truly remarkable.

Gavin and Wetzel competently hold up their ends of the play. Gavin plays the seedy older brother with a subtle hint of a greater depth. Wetzel plays a Hollywood producer with a nice-guy charisma you wouldn’t expect from a man in his position. This contrast makes for an interesting performance; Wetzel seems almost guileless in a job one would expect to be played like a politician. Rounding out the cast is Sandra Stark in the role of the mother – again (during the holidays she appeared in Boulevard Theatre‘s production of Indian Blood). Seeing Stark play mother twice in three months would be strange if she weren’t so good at it. She speaks the lines. She doesn’t really need to do much more than that. She’s a natural for this kind of role, and here she’s a clever bookend to the production.

Spiral Theatre’s production of True West runs through February 3 in its new space on West National. For more information call 414-248-6481 or visit Spiral online.