True West

First Preview: Dec 26, 2018

Opening Date: Dec 26, 2018

Closing Date: Mar 17, 2019

Running Time: 02:15

https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/2018-2019-season/true-west/

Playing @

Todd Haimes Theatre

227 W 42nd St New York, NY 10036

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Opposites attack in Sam Shepard’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated play about two brothers with more in common than they think.

Holed up in their mother’s California house, screenwriter Austin (Paul Dano) and lowlife Lee (Ethan Hawke) wrestle with big issues—and each other.

Order vs. chaos. Art vs. commerce. Typewriter vs. toaster...Shepard’s rip-roaring classic returns to Broadway, gleefully detonating our misguided myths of family, identity and the American Dream.

Age Guidance: 16

Show Notes: 1 Intermission

Performance Schedule:

TUESDAY thru SATURDAY @ 8 PM
WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY @ 2 PM
SUNDAY @ 3 PM

Director

James MacDonald

Written by

Sam Shepard

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Reviews

Toxic masculinity may be a growing blight on society, but for spectacular proof that onstage, at least, it can also be vital entertainment, look no further than the sizzling Broadway revival of Sam Shepard’s “True West.” The play stars Ethan Hawke and Paul Dano as two bruising, brawling brothers who tear into each other with a precision and gusto that can only be achieved by near (and sometimes dear) family members. Fortunately, the only victims of this poisonous sibling rivalry are the brothers themselves — along with a few inanimate innocent bystanders including a typewriter, a bag of golf clubs and (a little sad, this) their mother’s cherished houseplants.

If the charismatic Hawke all but wipes the floor with Dano in the play’s first half, Dano gets his turn to act out in Act Two. These are showcase roles, and the actors play them with gusto.

Dano and Hawke are at their best in the final scenes, compelling and convincing as they come unglued in a drunken battle of wills. They tear each other apart, and eventually everything else, in their alcohol-induced rage (back to that DNA). By the time their mother (Marylouise Burke, oddly unruffled by the circumstances) returns early, the house is a shambles — think saloon after a bar fight. Lee's taken a golf club to everything, beer cans and booze bottles clutter every surface. And those precious plants? Wilted to the point of no return.

Accessibility:

Wheelchair Info

Designated, flexible wheelchair seating area behind the last row of the center orchestra and the last row of the mezzanine

Seating

Seats 740. Orchestra, 1st floor; Mezzanine, 2nd and 3rd Floor; 5th floor Penthouse lobby open to the public. 4th floor private. Lower lobby main public facilities and lounge.

Entrance

Primary entrance from street, through double doors into outer lobby with box office, through double doors into main lobby, through 2 sets of double doors (each 31") into Orchestra.

Box Office

227 West 42nd St between 7th and 8th Avenues. Hours: 10am - 8pm: Tuesday through Saturday. 10am - 6pm Sunday and Monday. The box office closes at 6pm on any evening with no performance.

Restroom

Accessible restrooms on Orchestra level only

Telephone

There is a secure cell phone charging station on the 5th floor, reachable by elevator. The station is complimentary to use but requires a credit card to “unlock” devices. The station is 69” high.