Sam Shepard’s darkly humorous tale of opposites, attracts. By Dee Jefferson
At the helm is Academy Award-winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, who notoriously did a five month run of the show in 2000, during which he and co-star John C. Reilly alternated between the roles. Ten years later, Hoffman brings it to STC (where he directed Andrew Upton’s Riflemind in 2007), with Brendan Cowell and Wayne Blair in the lead roles. Being directed by an actor of Hoffman’s talent, who has played both roles for an extended period, seems like a wild prospect – and I say as much when I sit down to interview Blair, on a sunny but blustery day at STC’s harbourside home. It’s clearly a massive understatement. “You can probably see I’m a bit manic now,” says the actor, running his hands through unruly hair. “I’m just getting ready to go at 10am, because we’re doing the last two scenes this morning – so I’m getting myself worked up for it. Look, I’m in a master class every day – with not only one of the best actors in the world, but one of the best directors as well; he’s just a good storyteller, he knows what makes people tick. Not only that, but he knows the play so well – that is brilliant.” Set in Los Angeles, True West is a duel between brothers Austin and Lee – the former a wannabe screenwriter, the latter a petty thief and booze-soaked hustler. When Lee drops in on Austin, and tries to co-opt his younger brother's life, the two slowly undergo an inversion of identity; Lee becomes convinced he can write a better screenplay than Austin, and Austin slips into resentful, alcoholic obsolescence. “It’s about struggling with who you really are, and who you’d like to be,” says Blair. Unfamiliar with Shepard before this role, he had imbibed some of his iconic essence through cultural osmosis. “When Sam first got to Hollywood, he was this really good lookin’ guy and he had these really brown, awful teeth. People said get your teeth fixed, and you’ll be a star – like Gary Cooper or whatever; but he didn’t, coz he was just this normal dude. He didn’t go to acting school, he wasn’t in ballet classes at the age of nine; he lived a ‘normal life’ – if you can call it that. And he got to New York and he ‘made it’. So he’s been always struggling with that [issue of identity], maybe. And we all struggle with it – me living in Sydney, when I could be up in Rockhampton with a regular job.”
Blair played the central character in Guirgis’ play, a Southern Baptist with murder on his mind but the fire of the lord in his belly - a performance that he thinks may have tagged him for the role of Lee, rather than Austin. He also executed an almost-flawless Southern accent, which could also have weighed-in on Hoffman’s casting decision; this production of True West is authentic to its origins. During our interview, in fact, Blair slips into the Californian drawl of his character more than once. “This guy’s lived in the desert for three to six months, but it’s sort of like he’s trying to search for something better. And for him to [live in the desert] means something in his life; it makes him something,” the actor says, thumping the table for emphasis. “It makes him a credible person because he’s done this – he’s talked to cactus, he’s looked out at the desert, he’s drunk, he had a pitbull and was in dog-fighting. But he’s doing that because he’s got nothing else. And that’s why he’s a thief, he’s a roustabout, he’s borderline sociopathic… He’s a jack of all trades and master of none – he’ll do whatever to survive.” Blair's been on both sides of the Lee/ Austin divide, in more ways than one. The Queensland native did a business degree out of high school, majoring in marketing. His grades were average – except in his Comic Drama elective, in which he got High Distinctions and topped the class. Nevertheless, he went straight from university to a position as an Indigenous Trainee at the Australian Tourism Commission. “And I played two games of football for the [Canterbury] Bulldogs, and then went back to Rocky with my tail between my legs. I didn’t know what I wanted to do.” After failing to make the cut at NIDA, he was advised to try for QUT. “I didn’t even know what it was, but I thought, ‘fuck it, I’ll do it.’ It was one of those spur of the moment things - I was probably a bit like Lee, that ‘ignorance is bliss’ attitude. But then you find there’s a little bit of Austin in you, and you’ve gotta just settle down and do the hard work, to get there.” Could Blair swap roles, like Hoffman did? “Yeah. I probably could. I haven’t thought about it until now. It scares me. Anyway – you know, one step at a time!” What: True West by Sam Shepard; Dir. Philip Seymour Hoffman When: November 2 - December 18 Where: Sydney Theatre Tickets: from $30 sydneytheatre.com.au
Illustration by Matt Roden
Although Hoffman decisively pegged him as the 'Lee' of his piece, Blair says that it always felt like the natural role for him to play regardless. He modestly describes
the casting as ‘a fluke’, but upon further probing reveals that Hoffman was a fan of his B Sharp (Belvoir St) production of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ Jesus Hopped the A Train, which was playing while Riflemind was in rehearsals. “I think Jesus Hopped was the first show that Hoffman directed for LAByrinth Theater Company, and it was his baby, he knew the play so well – he’s best mates with the writer. So he saw [my production] and liked it, and maybe there was more of a connection [with me].”
True West photo by Derek Henderson
O
ne of the key throughlines for Sydney Theatre Company’s 2010 Main Stage season has been ‘America’; from Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night and Thornton Wilder’s Our Town to more recent classics, like August: Osage County – and True West, by American playwright/actor Sam Shepard. Although it was neither his most critically acclaimed nor awarded (Buried Child, written a year earlier, won a Pulitzer in 1979), True West is a powerful play, with its dark humour and simple, single-location narrative structured around the inversed fortunes of two brothers, who are both opposite and in opposition to each other.
34 :: BRAG :: 386 :: 01:11:10