True West

by Sam Shepard

seen at the Vaudeville Theatre on 17 December 2018

Matthew Dunster directs Kit Harington as Austin and Johnny Flynn as Lee with Donald Sage Mackay as Saul Kimmer (Austin's agent) and Madeleine Potter as Austin and Lee's mother in this curious comedy noir play about the conflict between two brothers, which has been read as an embodiment of the inner conflicts of Sam Shepard himself.

Austin is looking after his mother's house (she is visiting Alaska), and trying to complete a screenplay to seal a deal with his agent. But his tearaway brother Lee turns up, disturbing his equanimity. Where Austin appears focused and in control, Lee is a freer spirit, evidently feckless and untroubled by low-level criminal activity. Fraternal tension is only exacerbated by these temperamental differences.

Buried Child

by Sam Shepard

seen at the Trafalgar Studios on 5 January 2017

Scott Elliott directs Ed Harris as Dodge and Amy Madigan as his wife Halie in this Gothic horror version of American family life. The two senior actors (also actually husband and wife) are ably supported by Barnaby Kay and Gary Shelford as their sons Tilden and Bradley (the first psychologically damaged and the second one-legged after a possibly self-inflicted chainsaw "accident") and by Jeremy Irvine as Tilden's son Vince and Charlotte Hope as his Californian girlfriend Shelly.

The play is set in the living room inhabited by the decrepit patriarch Dodge - he is on stage coughing and watching TV from his sofa as the audience files in. It is raining and there are leaks being caught in buckets and pans. When the play starts, it is with a peculiar dialogue between Dodge and the unseen Halie who is upstairs preparing herself to go out to meet the local minister. When she finally appears the lack of engagement between the two is acutely underlined as her somewhat faded smartness contrasts with his utter dishevelment.