Paul Dano fails to rival Ethan Hawke in soft ‘True West’ revival

When Ethan Hawke relieving himself onto a houseplant turns into one of the crucial noteworthy moments in a Broadway present, it’s protected to say it’s been a soggy evening of theater. That’s what awaits at this intermittently involving, usually tedious tackle “True West,” Sam Shepard’s much-admired 1980 darkish comedy of savage sibling rivalry and function reversal. On this Roundabout revival, which opened Thursday, Hawke performs Lee, a mangy drifter and small-time felony. He’s a lowlife who lives in the desert, chain-chugs beers and will get off on mocking his estranged brother, whom he joins, uninvited, on the Southern California residence of their vacationing mother. Paul Dano performs Lee’s youthful sibling, Austin, an Ivy League-educated household man and screenwriter who’s this shut to promoting a challenge to Hollywood. Buttoned-up and even-keeled, Austin’s every thing Lee isn’t. Or is he? When Lee persuades Saul, a producer, over an unseen recreation of golf, to purchase his film thought for a Western as an alternative of Austin’s love story, every thing switcheroos. Saul “thinks we’re the identical particular person,” Austin tells his brother. And the Tinseltown honcho could also be proper. Joan Marcus Issue in surreal touches, reminiscent of a long-winded and bloody story a couple of man dropping his tooth, and a fleet of stolen toasters, and that’s just about the play. With the suitable actors, that’s all it takes to compel and combust. Which it did in the 2000 Tony-nominated revival with Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly, who alternated roles and set off sparks in every. This new model, directed by James Macdonald, may use a high-voltage energy infusion. As is, the staging faucets Shepard’s sly humor however lacks power and fizzles as a battle royale. Snarling and sneering, Hawke conjures the correct of feral menace, very like the coyotes heard howling exterior the house. However Dano, blank-faced and bland, presents subsequent to nothing to play or punch towards. The “Escape at Dannemora” star fades into the surroundings even when Lee kilos his typewriter to items with a golf membership. In the long run, the brawling brothers have wrecked their mother’s cheery kitchen and are on the verge of killing one another. By then, you’re much less seemingly to surprise what introduced them to this or why their crazy mom (Marylouise Burke), who enters late in the motion, is babbling on about Picasso. You’re extra apt to pity the crew who has to clear up the mess after each present. Share this: https://nypost.com/2019/01/25/paul-dano-fails-to-rival-ethan-hawke-in-soft-true-west-revival/ The post Paul Dano fails to rival Ethan Hawke in soft ‘True West’ revival appeared first on My style by Kartia.