The idea of Hollywood as a fickle funhouse is certainly not a unique one, and Shepard's tale of battling brothers isn't either. But his exploration of the chaotic unacknowledged forces beneath modern American life is his lasting contribution. There's an unsettling menace under the comedic structure of True West, an absurdist streak that surfaces late in the story, turning what appears to be realistic narrative into pure myth. That's the beauty of Shepard's work. He starts with one thing, usually a pretty normal thing, and it morphs into something else, something rich but strange. That's also, not incidentally, the danger in True West; the play, despite its funny riffs and situations, doesn't hold up so well merely as comedy. If you don't hook into the spooky stuff behind the laughs, what you get is half a play.
It's precisely that restless dangerous undertow that's missing from the Mosaic production, a curious fault for this company, which has demonstrated considerable finesse and skill in its short history. Here, though, artistic director Richard Jay Simon and company seem rather clueless. A quick scan of Shepard's biography might have tipped them off. Born Samuel Shepard Rogers VII, he grew up on a Southern California farm in the shadow of his complex, tormented father, a World War II bomber pilot turned Fulbright fellow, then high school teacher, then farmer, and finally full-time alcoholic. As the family disintegrated, the teenage Shepard left home, repeating his father's cycle as a restless jack-of-all-trades. In 1964, at age nineteen, he landed in New York's East Village, where he found an anchor of sorts in the theater world and his voice as a writer. Working as a waiter at the Village Gate, Shepard cranked out a manic stream of experimental short plays. His first, Cowboys, established themes that he has returned to ever since -- the disintegration of the American family and the haunting myths of the West.
Shepard's career took off. He wrote and acted for such New York companies as La Mama, the Open Theatre, and the American Place, and he got caught up in the creative anarchic swirl that was the theater scene in the 1960s. He won a string of Obie Awards, beginning in 1965, before kiting off for four years to London, where he wrote Tooth of the Crime, a tale of battling rock stars. Then came a series of "family plays": The Curse of the Starving Class, Buried Child (Pulitzer Prize winner in 1979), True West, and Fool for Love. Shepard became a part-time musician (he was into jazz and rock and roll, and he played drums for the iconoclastic Holy Modal Rounders) and a respected film writer and performer (he co-wrote Zabriskie Point for Antonioni and Paris, Texas for Wim Wenders and scored as an actor in Days of Heaven, The Right Stuff, and Black Hawk Down). Along the way, Shepard struggled with several issues that reoccur in his plays -- the enduring power of his ever-absent father and Shepard's own dual nature. He was a steady and domestic wordsmith who was also a tortured erratic outsider. His wilder exploits are the stuff of theatrical legend, especially with his onetime lover, wild woman Patti Smith, who carried on another reckless romance with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. Shepard and Smith battled and romanced in bars, onstage, and in Shepard's room at the Chelsea Hotel. They recorded their histrionics in Cowboy Mouth, a play they wrote in two nights by shoving a typewriter back and forth between them. Shepard was a wild child in his day, using his creative skills to work through his demons like his berserker brethren, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson or the late, lamented, excitable music boy Warren Zevon.
While the Mosaic production is marked by clarity and competence, it completely misses those live-wire underpinnings. The comedy is carefully wrought, but the play's anarchic menace is missing. The four-actor cast is thoroughly competent, but there's little chemistry. Terrell Hardcastle plays Austin as an intelligent, somewhat repressed professional trying to cope with an outlandish situation. It's a solid enough performance but a recycled one. Hardcastle has been doing essentially the same character in the same way in a string of area productions. Michael St. Pierre plays Lee, one in a long line of Shepard's dangerous charismatic drifters, more as a teddy bear than a predator, offering little threat or fire. Linda Bernhard, normally so reliable, seems lost here, bringing little impact to the brief role of the returning mother. As Saul the Hollywood producer, David Vargo fares best, aided by the fact that Shepard flips the usual stereotypes, making the Hollywood producer the most normal character in the bunch.
Most of the problems here must be laid to Richard Jay Simon's naturalistic staging, which offers meticulous detail where manic gonzo energy is required. When Lee destroys the house in his search for a pen or pencil to write with, his search feels carefully staged, not crazed. The same applies to the play's long monologues, extended word riffs that come across as constructed, not booze-fueled improvisations. David Sherman's kitchen set seems decidedly non-L.A., with its tacky Southwestern/Santa Fe décor, but at least the use of Native American pottery and artifacts suggests some mythic elements. The production might have been better off without the languid music score, mostly Allman Brothers and Hank, Jr. at their drowsiest. But the soundtrack says it all. Shepard refers to two external forces in his L.A. nighttime setting, the yin and yang of his tale: the lulling normalcy of crickets and the enticing, spooky menace of prowling coyotes. This Mosaic show has lots of crickets but no coyotes. It whirs and chirps, but there are no howls echoing through them thar L.A. hills.
Onstage
•Barnum: The Musical: P.T. Barnum, who created the "Greatest Show on Earth," is the subject of this musical that features aerial, high wire, and circus acts, 8:00 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2:00 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, through October 26. Stage Door Theatre, 8036 W. Sample Rd., Coral Springs; 954-344-7765.
•Fell in Love With A Girl: Mad Cat Theatre Company opens its season with a drama about love, friendship, and dating in these modern times, 8:00 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays (no show on October 4), through October 18, 305-576-6377 (details). Miami Light Project, 3000 Biscayne Blvd.; 305-576-4350.
•La Lechuga: A family copes with the difficulties of caring for a relative in a vegetative state in this black comedy presented in Spanish, 8:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3:00 and 6:00 p.m. Sundays, through October 9. Teatro 8, 2101 SW Eighth St.; 305-541-4841.
•La Reina, La Lupe: Actress Sully Diaz interprets the life and music of famed Cuban salsa singer "La Lupe" with the backing of a live orchestra, in Spanish, 8:30 p.m. Friday, October 3; in Spanish, 3:00 and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, October 4; in English, 6:30 p.m. Sunday, October 5. Broward Center for the Performing Arts, Amaturo Theater, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; 954-462-0222.
•Long Day's Journey Into Night: New Theatre revives its 1994 Carbonell Award-nominated production of this Eugene O'Neill play, 8:00 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 1:00 and 6:00 p.m. Sundays, through October 19 (6:00 p.m. show will not be performed on September 21 and October 19). New Theatre, 4120 Laguna St., Coral Gables; 305-443-5909.
•Lord, All Men Can't Be Dogs: This gospel stage comedy portrays an embattled married couple whose relationship is sabotaged by two fallen angels living in their midst, 8:00 p.m. Thursday, October 2, through Saturday, October 4; 3:00 p.m. Saturday, October 4 and Sunday, October 5; 7:30 p.m. Sunday, October 5. Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, 174 E. Flagler St.; 305-374-2444.
•Return to the Forbidden Planet: This 1950s sci-fi musical version of Shakespeare's The Tempest follows the adventures of Captain Tempest and his space crew as they travel toward Planet D'lllyria, call for showtimes, through October 26. The Actors' Playhouse at Miracle Theatre, 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables; 305-444-9293.
•The Exonerated: Lynn Redgrave and Montel Williams tell the stories of real-life death row inmates who were subsequently found innocent, based on the work of married playwrights Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, 8:00 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, beginning Tuesday, October 7; 2:00 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, through October 19, 954-523-3309 (details). Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 SW Fifth Ave., Fort Lauderdale; 954-462-0222.
•Tracers: A collage of scenes follows a group of soldiers through combat in Vietnam and to the eventual realization that the war will forever change their lives, 8:00 p.m. Thursday, October 2, through Saturday, October 4; 7:00 p.m. Sunday, October 5, 305-496-7533 (details). Artemis Performance Space 742, 1165 SW Sixth St.; 305-324-0585.
•True West: Mosaic Theatre presents the classic comedy by Sam Shepard about a rocky relationship between two brothers -- one a Hollywood playwright, the other a small-time criminal, 8:00 p.m. Thursday, October 2, through Saturday, October 4; 3:00 p.m. Saturday, October 4, and Sunday, October 5. American Heritage Center for the Arts, 12200 W. Broward Blvd., bldg 3000, Plantation; 954-577-8243.
