Princeton Summer Theater Tackles Sam Shepard's 'True West'

If you’re familiar with the notion of sibling rivalry, today’s episode may be the one for you. Today, Gina is speaking with the cast and director of Princeton Summer Theater’s production of True West.

Written by Sam Shepard, the play first debuted Off-Broadway in 1980 with Peter Boyle and Tommy Lee Jones in the leading roles. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1983 and went on to receive four Tony Award nominations, two Drama Desk nominations, and won an Outer Critics Circle Award for its Broadway debut in 2000.

Directed by Wasif Sami and starring Joe McLean and Jordan Rashdan, Princeton Summer Theater’s production will tackle the dark comedy this July. Stay tuned to learn more about the show and the work that goes into building a gritty, grounded examination of masculinity and sibling rivalry.

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Transcript

Meet True West And The Team

Gina Marie Rodriguez 0:02

This is Gina Marie Rodriguez, and you're listening to the Jersey Arts podcast. If you're familiar with the notion of sibling rivalry, today's episode may be the one for you. Today I'm speaking with the cast and director of Princeton Summer Theater's production of True West. Written by Sam Shepard, the play first debuted off Broadway in 1980 with Peter Boyle and Tommy Lee Jones in the leading roles. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1983 and went on to receive four Tony Award nominations, two Drama Desk nominations, and one an Outer Critic Circle Award for its Broadway debut in 2000. Directed by Wasif Sami and starring Joe McLean and Jordan Rashdan, Princeton Summer Theater's production will tackle the dark comedy this July. Stay tuned to learn more about the show and the work that goes into building a gritty, grounded examination of masculinity and sibling rivalry.

Wasif Sami 1:00

Hi, I'm Wasif Sami and I'm directing True West. Hi, my name is Jordan Rashdan. I'm playing Austin in True West.

Joe McLean 1:08

My name is Joe McLean, and I'm playing Lee in True West.

First Encounters With Sam Shepard

Gina Marie Rodriguez 1:13

I am so excited to meet all of you today and to talk to you about True West, which this is going to be my first introduction to the show. I haven't seen it nor read it. I'm curious if this is also your first introduction, or had you guys been familiar with the show before you were cast, before you began directing it. I want to hear all about it.

Wasif Sami 1:35

Yeah, I can start. I read the play a year ago, right after I graduated college. Um, and I had mostly read new plays uh that were written in the last 10 years. But then I was like, you know what, I haven't ever read a Shepherd play. And he's kind of this Titan of the American theater, known for writing these gritty, complex, you know, psychological characters, but he also is known to have an experimental kind of rock and roll side to him. So I was actually on campus directing a show for Princeton Summer Theater last year. And I went to the library, found True West, and then I was, yeah, I was overwhelmed by the rock and roll of it, by these two brothers battling, and I was like, I want to work on the play. So that was it. It's been a year of knowing this play for me.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 2:22

I love that. How about how about the actors?

Jordan Rashdan 2:25

My knowledge of Shepard is uh, especially his male characters, is very um uh there's a lot of like dominance and aggression that he writes about, and um, just as me as an actor, um, is not typically what I get cast in because um I do have like a very, I don't know, like kind eyes that are kind of hard to escape from. But it was really interesting the direction that they wanted to go with this and uh kind of encouraged the this softness from this character, this kind of emotional state, and you know, allowing that to kind of counterbalance from Joe. Um, but yeah, I've never I never really read it. I kind of was afraid of Shepard because he is quite a Titan. He is he is a hard, hard man to to tackle when you when you are in the room.

Joe McLean 3:15

Uh I read the play in high school when I started reading plays and really getting into acting, and I kind of I remember being blown away by it and flagging that it would be a good either of the brothers would be, you know, uh a dream role. And Shepard is kind of the a playwright in in the area that I'm the most interested in, kind of 20th century American realism and being a very tall, broad guy, a lot of those parts fit my stature in a really nice way. So um, and also throughout college, because of that, I I tend to get cast uh kind of opposite to Jordan in these sort of patriarchal, domineering, uh kind of masculine roles. Um, and so I'm I'm doing the same thing here, but Shepard's writing is so good and the character is so rich that it feels like those it's a lot more layered and and that that kind of intensity and that aggression is coming from a some kind of necessity, some kind of early wound. And that's really, really interesting to play. And it and it feels kind of like that the role is a great merriment of um things I've done in the past, and then kind of pushing the vulnerability of it. So it's it's really, really exciting. And I it's um uh yeah, to play this role so young is is a is a real treat.

Who Lee And Austin Are

Gina Marie Rodriguez 4:37

I love the way both of you speak about these characters. And I guess I'd like to know more about the roles themselves. Who are you playing? What are their names? Uh, what do we need to know about these characters before we meet them?

Joe McLean 4:51

Yeah, so I'm I play Lee, who is the older brother. Um has been living on the desert, the Mojave Desert, for three months and has been estranged from his family and his brother for almost five years. And the start of the play, the mom, the parents are separated or divorced. It's not spelled out, but uh the mom has gone away and has asked Austin, the younger brother, to take care of the place. Uh, and I've kind of showed up out of nowhere. Um, and I'm uh uh a drifter and a thief. I steal um electric devices, televisions, and stuff from people's homes, and that's how I make a living. I'm very much kind of like this kind of living in a very primal way in a time in America where things are really getting very cookie-cutter and you know, fully developed in this kind of aged Western mythology is no longer. And I think Lee, for for kind of the prologue to the play, has been trying his best to keep that going and live in this um kind of dog eat dog world. Uh, and then he's coming back to his to you know east uh East Los Angeles to get another chance at civilization, essentially. Um so he's and so it's in he's in a bind, really, and trying to get involved in that world.

Jordan Rashdan 6:21

Yeah, Austin is a really complex and not a very uh necessarily quote unquote common character in Shepard's play. He kind of represents this struggling artist that um is a is a writer and he comes out into the middle of nowhere to have his final attempt at writing something successful, something that's going to start up his career. Um and then it is interrupted by his brother. And his specific relationship with his brother is his brother is this very aggressive, very similar to his his father, like Joe said, drifter, kind of everything that Austin doesn't want to be. And I think it's really interesting that he writes these characters who are raised by the same family but are so different. And I feel like Austin has tried so hard to run away from what his father is and what his brother is because he doesn't want to be a mess. Uh, and so therefore he's trying to write. He went to an Ivy League, he's very well educated, but he's not writing anything successful and nothing is working. And so this is kind of his last attempt. So they're kind of both in this place of desperation when they're in this house in the middle of nowhere. Um and you know, for people listening, like the show, like I don't I don't know how much of spoilers I'm allowed to give. But things get it turned on its head. Um, they kind of mirror each other, and that and that's a big theme in the play, is this arc. And it's honestly such a treat as an actor to be able to have such a big arc and change, and it's so I mean, Shepard really writes it in there for you, like, you know, like, yes, I do have to do a lot of work, and yes, it is really challenging, but it's just this big change in every scene. You see these cracks about his ego and that he can't quite get things right and the fracture between the brothers' relationship. But you also get to see some really beautiful moments between them, and that's that's probably my favorite parts of the show.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 8:26

You both speak so beautifully about this show. And Jordan, you just brought up something that I find very interesting that these two brothers are they grew up in the same house, but they're so very different. And it reminded me of something that I I'm gonna butcher his name. I'm so sorry. I think Dr. Gabor Mate, I don't know if I pronounced that correctly, but he had previously said that no two siblings or no sibling is raised by the same parents, even though you may indeed share parents and grow up in the same house, you know, you have a different experience with each of those parents. And I feel like that must have been at play for these two characters because they are so different, and one clearly favors his father more so than the other. But I love hearing about that dynamic. I'm very interested in the whole sibling rivalry

Directing The Split Self

Gina Marie Rodriguez 9:14

thing. And Wassif, I guess I want to ask you as the director, what is your approach? How are you guiding these actors and these characters?

Wasif Sami 9:24

As a director, the first thing you have to do is develop your personal connection to the material. The cool thing about plays is that a writer lays out the story, but because we are live humans embodying it and putting on the show each night, our point of views and our interests bring different parts of the story to the fore for the audience. So in my preparation, there were two things that really stood out to me that I wanted to lift. One, I was really aware that these two brothers represented Shepard, an artist, dealing with two parts of himself that he felt were battling with each other. One, the cowboy, the self-destructive part of him, the violent part of him, and the other, the guy who wanted to sell his art and make it in Hollywood, in civilization. And so I think knowing that these two brothers represent a split nature helped me tease out things from Joe and Jordan and wanting to see both sides of Shepherd in each of them, and both sides of Shepard represented by the two of their characters individually. Um, and I think secondly, I really wanted to explore two brothers dealing with the aftershock of a violent childhood. And the question of are we marked by who our parents are? Are we cursed? Are there generational curses that we can't escape from no matter how hard we try? So as a director, you come up with these inquiries and then they kind of play out in rehearsal through the images you build or the ways that you work with designers to highlight certain moments. Um yeah, I would say deciding what I care about and then feeding that into the different parts of the process through collaboration with others.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 11:10

I am so fascinated by this analysis. I love that it really is this dichotomy of one person that has been split into two. I wonder

Envy And The Brothers’ Reversal

Gina Marie Rodriguez 11:22

if it's fair to say that envy is a central theme in the play. And if so, how are Joe and Jordan, how are you tapping into that as performers?

Jordan Rashdan 11:34

Yeah, uh towards the end of the play, Austin really wants to give up on what he's worked his whole life for, which is writing, and go and live on the desert and become a drifter like Lee. And it's so it's that's why this is such a dark comedy, is it's like it's so funny that this Ivy League button-up guy wants to go and do something so gritty, and he wants to do that, and he wants to relive what his childhood was. And like I think it's that kind of envy. It's like um, you know, he ran ran so far away from what he doesn't want to be that he suddenly just slingshots back into it, and and he wants it more than anything else in the world, more than what he's worked at um at school for for writing. And um, so I think Austin has a lot of subconscious envy, like throughout the play. It's like, oh, my brother, he's a thief and he does these crazy things, and I'm put together. But in the back of his head, it's there that like oh, but it would be so cool to live a little. I never got to live. I I spent my whole life trying to be so good, and and the only time I ever did something bad was when I was a kid with my brother, and I missed that, and and I I and I do envy that. And I think you're very smart to say envy is envy is the one. That's that's the sin of the play.

Joe McLean 13:02

And it's it's a special kind of envy because it's not as simple as I want to be like my brother. It's really I want to be who I am, and then also have everything that my brother has as well. I want I want the abilities and the resources of two people as one, which is impossible. You kind of think of the play as like, you know, a vat of oil and water, and you're trying so hard to meld them into one, but it's impossible. Um, because clearly what Shepard is playing with is his own double nature, is you know, I've had this amazingly successful career as a writer, and a lot of that is based on the freedom and the dwelling of being this kind of cowboy. But in order to express that and formalize that, you need to have the skills of a writer. So constantly, like it's you're kind of envious of a self that you aren't. You cannot be these two things at the same time, and that is really, really hard. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. People have two sides of themselves that they constantly get to kind of lily pad between instead of, oh, I I can't synergize these parts of myself. It's impossible. And that's basically the kind of cynical but you know almost comforting conclusion to the play is that you cannot reconcile the differences in between you. They will constantly be fighting and merging at times and disconnecting and and grappling with each other. Um, but you're you're left with that kind of eternal fight. And so the brothers really dramatize that because it's not they don't want to just be the other person, they want to be themselves and the other person, which is an amazingly kind of tragic envy. So it's kind of playing that. We don't want to lose ourselves, but we want to almost absorb the other person. It's like the twins in a womb. It's uh it's that it's that high stakes. Um, so that that's the kind of thing. I mean, it's hard to make that actionable, but that's my read on the characters.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 15:22

Twins in a womb. Wow, I really loved that that breakdown there. I think it's really relatable too. You know, I think your audiences will understand where these characters are coming from. And as someone who always jokes that I want to learn through osmosis, I kind of get that idea of just wanting to absorb somebody else's talents just by being around them.

What Princeton Summer Theatre Is

Gina Marie Rodriguez 15:44

I think that this show is amazing and everything that you're you're bringing to the table is really exciting. But what about the folks who aren't familiar with Princeton Summer Theater? What can you say about this company that is going to encourage new audiences to discover you?

Joe McLean 16:02

The great thing about SummerStock, especially if you go to all three of the shows, um, is you kind of get to be a part of this journey of these four people in this incredibly compressed amount of time trying to make three wildly different texts all work and fire on all cylinders. I mean, the play we're doing right now, the 39 steps, I mean, it's a total farce. It's a heightened universe, it's silly, it's goofy, you leave with a bright smile on your face. And part of me is a little bit concerned for people who are gonna come to True West and be incredibly sullen, entertained, but you know, dealing with some pretty heavy stuff. Um, but that's so exciting for us, and I and then I think um by proxy the audience, because um the the the joy of that is seeing these the same faces tackle all these different things things. So there's kind of a meta element. I don't know. I think that that I feel like as an audience member, that would be a lot of fun to see the shift of the same company and kind of take that artistic journey with us.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 17:10

Now, when you say the same company, you you, the performers, are also in that show. You're in all three shows?

Joe McLean 17:15

We're in all three shows, yes, the four of us. We had another actress who was in the first show only, because that's a that was a five-person play. But yes, we are doing all three shows. So we started with a a period piece romantic comedy. Then we did a almost sketch comedy-esque farce where Jordan and I play clowns, we play uh like 30-ish characters each. Uh uh, we play women, we play dogs, we play uh old Scottish men, we do tons of different accents, uh, all very heightened, you know, um vaudevillian. And now we're taking it into grounded, gritty realism. So, and what's the most kind of mind-bending thing is we'll have a nine to five rehearsal of True West, and we're in this, you know, we're going back and forth and we're really getting into it. And then at night we have to go put on clown makeup and and dance around and make a fool of ourselves. So it's a it's uh a lot of I feel, you know, in a really lovely way, feeling very stretched as an actor.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 18:19

That sounds incredibly daunting, but so impressive. Like I guess I hadn't r really fully understood the depth of work that you guys are doing to jump between these two very different genres in one day. It it for some reason I hadn't processed that it was all happening in one day. You rehearse in the morning and then you perform at night. My gosh, congratulations to all of you for being able to do that.

Jordan Rashdan 18:46

Thank you. It's a blast. It is, it's definitely a lot of work, especially because each of those shows only get uh two weeks of rehearsal and then we put them up and then immediately start on the next one. It it's a tight chip. But uh the to go to your question about PS uh Princeton Summer Theater, it's it really is like a small community. It's not, I don't feel like I'm in like um a machine of if I were to say I was like on, it's hard to put into words, but it's like this is a family versus in I'm in like an office. You know, we wake up, we go all eat breakfast together, then we rehearse, like we spend a lot of time together, just the four of us, and um and in in all of like e-board of PST. Um, and it is not for profit. So we're like kind of all in this together. It just feels like we're all here for the love of the art and to just do some good stuff. Uh, but it is a lot of work, it's very daunting.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 19:46

Well, shout out to the executive board as well, all of every role is important. We need to acknowledge that. Uh, but Wassip, can you weigh in as well?

Wasif Sami 19:55

Yeah, I think what's remarkable is trusting young people with a lot of responsibility, you know, with the responsibility of huge parts that, you know, in a normal theater, these guys would never play these parts for another 20, 30 years. But how cool is it that they can attack this material now? And I feel the same as a director, you know, and also with the executive board and everyone behind the scenes, like we're taking responsibility for selling tickets, marketing the shows, designing the posters. Um, and you're like running a small business, running a theater, running doing it in a very family-style way, as Jordan was saying. Um, I'm pretty amazed by what 22-year-olds can do, and it gives me hope for our generation and the future too.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 20:38

Well, as someone slightly older than 22, it also gives me hope for the future. Uh what is it that you I mean, I can tell that you guys are so in love with what you do, which is I I love to see it, but what is it that you're excited to share with these new audiences?

Why True West Hits Now

Gina Marie Rodriguez 20:57

And what is it that makes this show? Let's let's go back to True West for a second. What is it that makes this show so unique?

Wasif Sami 21:04

I'm excited to share with audiences a chance for them to examine American masculinity. You know, I feel like there's a lot of big guys right now taking the country in many different directions, whether politically, in tech and Silicon Valley. And I feel like art is a way to reflect on that. What is the desire to dominate? Um, what is the desire and what are the consequences of unchecked glorified masculinity, but also where does that come from for individual people? Um, Shepard doesn't totally say these brothers are amazing and you should be like them, but doesn't also discount them either. And so that study, it's cool that theater can do that in a way that's also like really funny and entertaining and dramatic. Um, so we can sit with ideas in a way that's exciting and entertaining too. That's what I'm looking forward to.

Jordan Rashdan 22:00

Yeah, personally, the story that I'm really excited to tell the audience is not to get too personal, but like this show is very um it deals with like, you know, alcoholic abuse of parents. And as someone that grew up with that, there's it's how what a gift that I'm able to tell this story of someone trying to deal with that trauma, that that that that thing that is just overtaking you as you grow up. Um, it's really, really beautiful to tell a story of how someone deals with that, whether or not this play has a happy ending. You're getting to see someone, a story that you can relate to, um, something that happened in your life. It's just really exciting to be like, oh, these are these people are like me. I'm watching this man who's very broken and trying to be masculine, but just is fighting. And I'm really excited to see, to have the audience see this character struggle to find that sense of self.

Joe McLean 23:00

I um uh I don't want to plagiarize, but I was listening to um Philip Seymour Hoffman talk about the play when he did it on Broadway in the early 2000s. And I think he made a really he said something really great, which was that, you know, with Shepard, any moment can inhabit any emotional state. You can, you know, you read the text and it's so poetic and and so free that you could you could do that same page laughing, jovially, reminiscing, or you could do it as an angry out and out brawl, and it all works. And that's what's so great about it being kind of a two-hander for the most part, is we get to veer with each other and dribble with each other and and see where it goes, and that audience will feel that kind of electricity, that alive thing. It's not just hitting the beats of the story, it's really this kind of alive, alive uh thing. Who's gonna win? It's it's almost like, you know, hopefully it can get to that same kind of level of you know, sportsmanlike almost feel, like you're watching a game of tennis or uh, you know, um an invasion game. And um, I think that's what's what suited so well structurally in the play that we can really play that game for the audience. And I think that's gonna be a lot of fun and it'll be feel different every night. So that that's the kind of stuff, the kind of work that I I cherish the most. So yeah, I'm really excited about that.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 24:30

I'm so impressed by listening to you, gentlemen, especially in a time where, yes, we are discussing what is masculinity, what is toxic masculinity, what is positive masculinity. And it really is hopeful for me as a woman in the world navigating, dealing with men who are having this crisis of self, listening to you be so aware of your own, your own masculinity, your own vulnerabilities. And I thank you so much, Jordan, especially for sharing your own personal stories and bringing that to the stage because you're right, art is how we connect and how we understand one another. So I just wanted to thank you for being so vulnerable and for sharing that. But Jordan, you were about to say something.

Jordan Rashdan 25:19

Yeah, of course. I think like it's so uh the gift of being human is that everyone has their own story, their own story to tell, you know, you know, man, woman, you know, queer race, like everyone has an upbringing and a story that they can tell other people, and you know, that's the beauty of theater. But what I was saying before about the play being so poetic, it, you know, for people listening, um, Wassif on day one of rehearsal shared something, but it one of the lines is we all sound the same when we're sloshed. We sort of just echo each other. And a big part of this play is um is those very beautiful poetic things. And um, it's fun to tackle as an actor because you don't want to sound like you're being a poet. But Sam Shepherd wrote it poetically, and so you just have to let that carry with that intention. So, in a way, this play is very much like a poem.

Final Thoughts And How To Attend

Gina Marie Rodriguez 26:10

So beautifully said, everyone. I this has been a genuine joy speaking to you about this show. I'd just like to ask you is there anything you'd like to say to your audiences before we close out?

Wasif Sami 26:24

It's gonna be a ride, hopefully, you know, and enjoy it and ride the ride. Um, and have fun and be prepared to think and feel and root for one brother, and then maybe change allegiances. Yeah, I'm inspired by what what Joe said too. Yeah, you're coming to a game, and the game is these two brothers connecting and fighting and everything in between.

Joe McLean 26:50

Yeah, and maybe, I mean, you know, I even Sam Shepherd says at the start of the play in the in the play script, you know, uh for the design team and the directorial team, you know, don't make a choice that takes away from the truth of the scene to elicit some kind of statement or point, um, but to go against his wishes, you know, it's uh watching them and being in that uh taking on that experience, and then, you know, again, thinking about what that double nature might look for you. I mean, you know, for so for me, I was thinking about it's like I clearly, you know, I love the theater, I love acting, and and the and the and the fragility it takes to excel in that. But my upbringing, I would went to all boys' boarding schools, I was in, you know, rugby locker rooms four times a week. The very masculine charged, who's on top atmosphere was a huge part of my my teenage years and and and still is. And um and that's a weird thing to kind of um you know going from a theater rehearsal and then going to a frat party, you know, something like that. And and um getting, you know, how do you how do you reconcile the two wolves within you, basically? I think that that's that's something to think about.

Jordan Rashdan 28:11

Yeah. You're in for a treat. It's gonna be a fun time.

Gina Marie Rodriguez 28:17

A fun time and perhaps a personal reckoning. I suppose it all depends on how you perceive the two wolves inside yourself. For more information about True West and the 39 Steps, be sure to visit Princeton Summer Theater.org. If you liked this episode, be sure to review, subscribe, and tell your friends. A transcript of this podcast, links relevant to the story, and more about the arts in New Jersey can be found at JerseyArts.com. The Jersey Arts Podcast is presented by Art Pride New Jersey, advancing a state of creativity since 1986. The show was co-founded by and currently supported by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. This episode was hosted, edited, and produced by me, Gina Marie Rodriguez. Executive producers are Jim Atkinson and Isaac Serna-Diez. And my thanks, of course, to Wasif Sami, Joe McLean, and Jordan Rashdan. I'm Gina Marie Rodriguez for the Jersey Arts Podcast. Thanks for listening.