California desert weirdness singes the stage in the classic Sam Shepard drama, “True West.”
River City Rep, the lone professional theater company in the region, has assembled a sharp cast (Logan Sledge, Shawn Dion, Youree McBride, Jr, Candace Higginbotham) and one of the region’s most driven and accomplished actor-directors, Blayne Weaver, to tell the story.
Heliopolis asked Weaver to set the scene for the performances. Of the play – Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C Reilly performed the lead roles on Broadway – he said: “‘True West,’ to me, is a story about family. How two brothers complete each other while being polar opposites.
We deal with the challenge of balancing Shepard’s comedy and intense drama by focusing on the characters’ truth. If you don’t believe and know Austin and Lee as people, the comedy doesn’t work and the drama feels forced. The casting of these two actors who bring a truth and vulnerability (along with a shared history) to their work is key to the execution of ‘True West.’
It’s an honor to be directing my first theatrical production on the heels of wrapping my fourth feature film. I recently wrote, directed and starred in ‘Cut To The Chase,’ a film noir thriller set and shot here in Shreveport. We plan to premiere it here in town in early 2016.”
River City Rep at East Bank Theatre, 630 Barksdale Blvd. June 24-27 at 7:30pm; June 28 at 3pm.
Tickets, $35, 20, 10. Online tickets. Box office: (318) 868-5888 Mon – Sat, 11am – 4pm.
Deliciously, the True West script is online.
Photo: Natalie Morales and Weaver at the premiere of his movie, “6 Month Rule.”