Playwright: Sam Shepard
At: The Hypocrites at the Chopin Theatre Studio, 1543 division
Phone: ( 312 ) 409-5578; $15-$20
Runs through: May 22
The myths of the American West, as handed down by Hollywood, are based in the eternal battle between civilization and savagery—the former, represented by good citizens with homes and families, and the latter, by rootless foreigners. But as Native Americans waned in their threat to peaceful settlers, the asocial Outlaw assumed the role of barbaric invader, and the town sheriff the task of upholding community values. Since both archetypes have their attractions, narrative tension would arise from our hero's struggle to follow the Right Path.
Wide open spaces being considerably reduced by 1980, Sam Shepard recounts the familiar yarn with appropriate efficiency. Our immediate environment is a tidy house in a California suburb, filled with potted plants and electric appliances, and sporting an artificial waterfall on the patio. Offstage, however, we hear the sounds of wild animals—crickets and coyotes. We meet a pair of brothers, the sons of an art-loving mother and a hard-drinking father. Austin is a writer, busily working on a chick-flick screenplay. Lee is a burglar, recently encamped in the desert. But as the play goes on, both men show an astonishing ease at adapting to the other's lifestyle.
So are they really TWO guys? Or do they symbolize the American male's ambivalence over his function in modern society? Or is Lee the embodiment of the amoral infant lurking in EVERY superego-dominated adult? Geoff Button directs a contemplative interpretation of Shepard's enigmatic parable, its legendary boys-making-messes spectacle emerging only when the text demands.
And if this restraint rendered its opening night a bit stiff, with Gregory Hardigan, as a Beverly Hills greedhead, and Kay Schmitt, as the dotty matriarch, seeming unsure of their characters, Paul Noble and Brad Harbaugh nevertheless generate the psychological connections required to render the play's final entropic showdown plausible in light of the events that precede it.
Chicago playgoers with personal recollections—real or imagined—of that OTHER True West, 23 years ago, are advised to set aside their visceral preconceptions. The Hypocrites' thoughtful exploration of fraternal dynamics needs no nostalgia to bolster its infectious appeal.