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When most people think of Sam Shepherd, they have in their minds his many acting roles, like his memorable onscreen recreation of test pilot Chuck Yeager in the 1983 film “The Right?Stuff.”
But Shepherd is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, and one of his plays, “True West” is scheduled for performance by the Things Unseen Theatre group in Altoona next weekend.
“I’ve wanted to do a Sam Shepherd play, since he is one of America’s most celebrated playwrights, and his work fits with the type of plays we like to do, dealing with topics that are sometimes rough and always discussion-provoking,” said Valerie Stratton, Things Unseen’s co-artistic director who also acts in the play.
“The characters of ‘True West’ symbolize the ideas of the insider and the outsider, our concepts of identity and family conflict. But the play also presents these ideas in a sometimes very funny way.”
The play, which runs on five different days starting on May 22, is directed by Rick Gray. He said he has been involved with local theater productions for almost two years, including the Altoona Community Theatre’s “The Crucible” show last year.
“Since that time, I have been involved in at least six other productions either onstage or backstage,” he said.
When Stratton approached him about directing the Shepherd piece, she first loaned him a book of his plays, Gray said.
“I really liked Shepherd’s writing, the images he evokes, the family and relationship conflict and how his shows defy traditional genre classification,” he said. “The more I read ‘True West,’ the more I liked it.”
The play is about two brothers and their complicated relationship, Gray said. One brother, Austin, played by Jim Watt, is an aspiring playwright who is a family man in his early 40s. The other brother, Lee, played by Rich McGarvey, is a loner and a drifter who is a little younger than Austin.
The play begins as Austin is watching his mother’s house while she’s away on vacation and his brother surprises him by showing up at the house.
The action continues from there and so does the conflict because they decide they’d like to switch things around and try out the other brother’s life – Austin would like to shuck his writing and have some adventures in the desert, and Lee wants to make money thinking up stories and selling them, Gray said.
“Each brother becomes envious of the other,” he said. “Conflict in the play arises when they push each other around, and each one tries his hand at the other brother’s profession.”
Watt said he finds his role very challenging yet rewarding.
“It is by far the most difficult show I have ever done,” he said.
He said as soon as he read the script, it became a favorite, and he signed up right away. He said he’s also very pleased with the cast members Gray has assembled.
The show itself should be well-received by local audiences, he said.
“Champagne, golf clubs, typewriters and everyday household appliances collide in a wild story about two brothers that are trapped between love, hate and the Old West,” Gray said.