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Theatre Journal 56.1 (2004) 108-109



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True West. By Sam Shepard. Ankara State Theatre. Yeni Sahne Theatre. 15 February 2003.




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Figure 1
Ali Ipin, Hüseyin Soysalan, and Aydin Uysal in Ankara State Theatre's production of True West.


True West was first staged at San Francisco's Magic Theatre in the summer of 1980. The play has been regularly revived in Turkey, most notably in the Istanbul City Theatre's production, which toured all over the country in the late 1980s. Isik Toprak's recent revival for the Ankara State Theatre began by establishing a clear distinction between the two main characters: Austin, an Ivy League-educated writer intent on selling his latest script to a Hollywood producer, and Lee, his older brother, a crude petty thief. Austin (Hüseyin Soysalan) was a balding, fastidious man in his late forties, dressed in neatly pressed white trousers and short-sleeved, checked shirt. He was clearly fond of his job, sitting at the kitchen table, typing away happily as the action began. In contrast, Lee (Ali Ipin) displayed little or no concern for his personal appearance. Dressed in a filthy white T-shirt, his straggly beard unkempt, he seemed to believe in nothing. Despite Austin's efforts to make him feel at home, Lee clearly believed that this home was the "kinda' place that sorta' kills ya' inside."

Isik Toprak treated the first half of this revival like a production of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, with much of the emphasis placed on personality clashes between the two main characters—the photogenic playwright contrasted with the rough-hewn drifter. The action unfolded in Austin's pristine kitchen, wherein brand names were visible everywhere, ranging from the white Westinghouse oven and refrigerator to the Tefal toaster. In spite of Austin's efforts to keep it clean (he was perpetually wiping the countertops or mopping the floor), Lee stubbed his cigarette butts out on the floor and threw beer around when angry. When Austin raised an objection, Lee responded by grasping his shirt collar and threatening to beat the living daylights out of him.

Matters soon changed, however, when Austin's producer Saul (Aydin Uysal) was dazzled by Lee's idea for a screenplay—a supposedly true American Western about an improbable and seemingly endless chase through the Texas panhandle. Austin dropped his script, got up from the kitchen table, and glanced at Saul before drawing a deep sigh. For all his surface sophistication, it was clear that he had little idea of what constituted so-called real life in the West. Henceforward, it was clear that there would be little to distinguish between the two brothers, as Austin took to petty larceny and begged to be shown how to live in the desert.

The second half of Toprak's revival witnessed the collapse of social distinctions between the two brothers, as their lives became more and more intertwined. The inevitable result was a crescendo of violence. Lee smashed Austin's typewriter (the lifeblood of any screenwriter) to bits with a golf [End Page 108] club; Austin responded by pretending to go for a walk in the desert, yanking the toaster behind him as if it were a dog on a leash. On another occasion, Austin made fun of himself, as someone obsessed with goods, by taking out six toasters from his kitchen cupboards and putting a slice of bread in each. The action culminated in Lee's complete destruction of Austin's kitchen—he opened cupboards, smashed crockery, and littered the floor with packages of food and drink cartons. As he did so, the sound of a coyote howling could be heard in the background, stressing how bestial the two brothers had become.

Toprak's production departed from Shepard's original play in the final scene. The published text ends with Lee blocking Austin's escape from the room and the coyote calling once again in the distance. The clear implication is that Lee has transformed and trapped his brother. In this revival, however, Toprak sought to suggest that the two brothers were...

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