Brothers trash stage in ‘True West’

A couple of real-life brothers shocked audiences by trashing the stage in their performance of “True West” at the John Waldron Arts Center.

Brett and Gabe Gloden played Austin and Lee, two brothers who are fighting over a potential movie deal for one of their screenplays. Austin is a 30-year-old writer who lives with his wife and kids and has a more traditional life, while Lee is a 40-year-old hobo who wanders the desert making a living gambling and stealing.

When Lee blows into town and convinces a movie producer to pass on Austin’s script and buy his idea instead, tempers flare. Each brother struggles to come to terms with the other’s lifestyle, as they find their lives suddenly reversed.

By the end of the show, the small stage of the Rose Firebay Theatre was littered with cooking utensils, beer cans, multiple toasters and an irreparably smashed typewriter – the stage mirroring the mess that the brothers’ lives had become.

Judging by the applause, audience members enjoyed the show, in which the two characters explore the value of a person’s place in life and how it feels to have that taken away.

IU alumna Erin Sullivan said she had never seen a Sam Shepard play before “True West.”

“I enjoyed it immensely,” Sullivan said. “I feel like you could see the multiple dynamics not only from the script, but from real life.”

Josie Gingrich, a Bloomington resident, said she thought the show was unlike any she had ever seen.

“I felt like seeing two real-life brothers playing brothers in a play was a unique and dynamic experience that cannot be easily replicated,” Gingrich said.

The play was financed by the Gloden brothers, who worked with the Bloomington Playwrights Project and formed the company Gunstar Productions to help raise money and produce the show.

Gabe Gloden, producer and managing director of the project, said it was great working with his brother Brett.

The bond between the two was apparent in the audience’s applause when they came out for the final bow, looking disheveled and covered in both sweat and beer from the final scene.

Joining them onstage for the curtain call were Lee Parker, who played the sleazy movie producer Saul Kimmer and Holly Holbrook, who played the boys’ mother.
The play will continue to run at 8 p.m. Jan. 22 through Jan. 24 in the Rose Firebay Theatre at the John Waldron Art Center.

Director Richard Perez, who is also artistic director of the Bloomington Playwrights Project, was in high spirits after the show.

“I thought it was great,” Perez said. “I thought they really gave it 150 percent. It was a really exciting opening night, and it’s just gonna get tighter and tighter.”