By Cory-LaNeave Jones
April 2, 2025
[WARNING: This content contains spoilers]
How do you reproduce a classic “western” from the 1980’s in 2025? Why would you resuscitate a discussion that has been quiet for decades? Who can do justice to presenting the madness between blood brothers, something deeper than just two kids fighting? Is it something genetically coded in their DNA or is it more related to the physical stimulus of their environment from childhood? Some would say it’s a little of both. I recommend that you catch this production to tackle these questions for yourself.
When you grow up in a destructive environment with an alcoholic caretaker, in this case a father, children learn different modes of behavior to maintain their family dynamic. Who is going to console the drunk when they are coming back to consciousness? Who can talk down the drunk when they are acting mad? Who pretends as though nothing is unusual, just “fix your face,” “this too shall pass.” People who live in these tragic dynamics learn to survive in any way possible.
Coming from a childhood without an addict in the house, but instead, a megalomaniac—a person with an obsessive desire for power in the home, it was a rather similar experience. My mother would often just act like “Oh well, this is just life kids”, or “just try and not make your father mad,” or “just tell him that he’s right if he’s mad.” I’m paraphrasing here, but basically that was her messaging to me and my brother most of the time. Just keep the ticking time bomb from going off – that was the message. And after years of therapy, I’ve come to recognize the character traits that no longer serve me as an adult. Though all in all, my father was a bit more of a well-rounded individual than I just suggested. He had multiple sides, sides that were valuable, so you can’t just throw the memories all away with today’s trash bag after you sort out your own things.
My life had bits of true western and by moving out west, as far as I could from North Carolina, I was getting far away from the parts of my upbringing I could never deal with. In Sam Shepard’s play, there is a reuniting of two grown up brothers, their mother is out of town on a trip to Alaska, and the younger brother was asked to stay and water the plants. The older brother waltzes in one night and that is were the children revert to their childhood selves. I read a good book on the subject called Growing Yourself Back Up by John Lee. He talks about how childhoods teach people to hold onto certain dynamics to create a stable environment. And sometimes those same behaviors do not continue to serve the same function when children are out of that same environment, and you have to learn to “grow yourself back up.” Well, that’s not what happens in this play. This one probably sticks more true to life.
In the play, these two brothers enter the stage as grown ups, but quickly begin to unravel into the children they once were and start picking at each other, finding reasons to be frustrated with one another. Their mother’s house becomes of less concern and they become sidetracked by the fact that the younger kid, Austin, is a successful writer working on a draft story for a film producer. When his older brother catches wind of this, he taunts the kid brother saying that basically, he’s got a better story. He then finds a way to throw chaos into the works by ultimately physically forcing his younger brother to write out the story he’s concocted in his head about a chase scene between two warring men in the deserts of the Texas panhandle. They are each in vehicles drawing horses and you can guess where the chase goes when one runs outta gas… As the brother explains “there are no mountains in the panhandle of Texas.” Apparently, the other brother learned how to hustle from their alcoholic dad and the younger brother chose to avoid stimuli that may keep him off course from reaching his goals. But the sudden reversion to childhood ways turns his life on it’s head and they get into several tussles that are more than name calling.
This production does more than just confront a broken family’s dynamic, it says something to us about our culture, it says something about a struggle between creative and destructive male energies, it says something about dysfunction. Where are we right now in our American culture?
Our Vice President’s social media posts on “X” include memes that promote combative male energy rather than conversation, understanding and peaceful resolution.
This play also made me think of wrestling culture. These two boys keep at each other just like two kids watching WWE or a Luche Libre match. When I was a kid, my bro and I watched Hulk Hogan in his prime beat Andre the Giant in Wrestlemania III. We never realized that the announcer (and owner) of the WWF (now WWE) Vince McMahon’s wife would become the head of the Department of Education. Not realizing that she would be tasked to run the department into the ground, just like “the body slam heard round the world” when Hogan took down Andre the Giant.
There’s a good movie out right now called “The Iron Claw” on Max that studies a family league of wrestlers from the early 1980’s local wrestling rings in Texas to their success joining the WWF. It shows a father’s dreams achieved through the success of his children. It also shows the downfall in injuries, deaths, suicide, and failure to live up to daddy’s expectations. In some circles they say expectations are resentments waiting to happen.
I asked a friend of mine if he’d heard of this play where two brothers fight and one of them bashes in a typewriter with a golf club and he replied back. Yep, that’s my favorite Sam Shepard play. He said he saw it in LA back when the two Quaid brothers played these roles. Randy and Dennis flying around a kitchen, must have been Major League, Footloose, and more like The Wrong Stuff.
In the Roustabouts Theatre version, both McBean and Moody show an emotional range befitting of the Pulitzer- and Obey-winning author. McBean’s authenticity of a timid younger child seeking approvals of his older sibling, even at the detriment of his own sanity as he turns from sober employed Ivy-Leager to drunk wanna-be desert rambler (just like his older drunk brother and father) are captivating. It’s easy to see how family cycles of abuse are difficult chains to break free of. Moody’s physicality dominates the stage from the time he enters to the final ambiguous ending. He generates fear and trembling in his on-stage little brother, and perhaps even those on the front row when he kicks around a bunch of pots and pans and mashed up beer cans and trash and debris including a lot of bad play manuscripts, some hand written, some previously typed on the previously workable typewriter. His immutable driving, conniving, and loud, scoundrel-like voice gets transferred to his previously weak and barely audible younger brother as the play progresses across the clean desert canvas of a typical ranch-style house, to that of a completely wrecked hoarders home—a delight to many scavengers walking the streets looking to scrape up a few fast pennies for recyclables at the local dump.
The film producer, Saul Kimmer is played by Dave Rivas, and he does a solid job of playing an easily swayed salesman that always trusts his gut and sometimes has to stick with the outcome of a small golf wager. Vicky Dawson plays the mother of Lee and Austin and does a great job of being more concerned about her wilting plants and messy kitchen than her two sons fighting a death match indoors. “You boys shouldn’t fight in the house. Go outside and fight. … You oughta’ let him breathe a little bit.”
The ending fight scene between these bros is intense and believable thanks to the assistance of fight choreographer George Ye. The lighting designer, Michelle Miles, accurately captured the mood transitions from daytime to tense discussion to night time to intense rumble. The sound designer, Matt Lescault-Wood, captures both the quiet sounds of the desert region filled with the incessant grinding of cricket thighs and howls of the coyotes capturing a local pet, and the interludes of music that swing from old time Country and Western, to modern guitar riff-heavy rocking Americana. Tony Cucuzzella, the scenic designer, nailed the ranch-style scenery with the rocky boulder backdrop, the Picasso wall calendar, and the US Flag on the wall above the kitchen sink.
When talking with artistic director for the Roustabouts, Phil Johnson, we discussed a number of topics, his background, the plays relevance and a number of other themes.
Phil: Well, we’re not that dissimilar. I used to be an architect.
Yeah. But then I was also a performer. I was all over the country with stuff and settled here and started a theater company, and that’s where I am now, putting on plays.
Cory: So what kind of performances were you doing before you started your production company?
Phil: Well, I did Les Misérables on Broadway, and I did several Broadway tours, that kind of thing. And I am from Chicago. I did a lot of cabaret work there. I’ve written some plays and taken them to off-Broadway and toured around the country with ’em. But I’ve done a lot of things. I realized I’m like, ‘Oh God, I have done way too many things.’ So just settled here and wanted to be in one place. So, making a theater company and putting up great shows that teach us all and me something is where I am right now.
Cory: So, Chi-Town. You were born and raised there and then moved to New York?
Phil: Yeah, that’s right. When I got in the shows on the road, I was all over the place and my partner and I decided to try to live one place. I was never home, and it was Southern California, so I went back and forth to Los Angeles and auditioned for stuff like Mad TV and things like that, didn’t make it. And, so, [I started] doing plays.
Cory: That’s kind of cool. Some Mad TV, huh?
Phil: Yeah, I auditioned for that kind of stuff. I was with a comedy, an improv company, sketch company called ACME Comedy in Los Angeles. I did that for three years. I learned so much there. It was very much kind of Saturday Night Live kind of energy. [It was called] ACME.
Cory: And so your production company is the Roust-ah-bouts, am I correct?
Phil: Yeah, The Roustabouts Theatre Company performs. We don’t have a theater yet, but we perform at Diversionary and at Scripps Ranch Theater and sometimes Moxie.
Cory: So what drew you to wanting to put on this Sam Shepard play the True West production.
Phil: Right. Well, I had done it 25 years ago when I first came here to California, and I was a small part in it, but I’ve always loved to play. I’ve always thought it was a thrilling, exciting piece. It’s very male. It’s very much about male testosterone, fueled by a lot of alcohol and bad behavior.
Cory: And so I can relate to a lot of that. I have a brother, and so I just finished reading that last scene this morning. But I feel like my brother and I get into a lot of useless arguments just for no reason other than sibling rivalry. So it definitely hit home with me in a lot of ways. Maybe not as violent.
Phil: It’s a play that will make you think of people yourselves, like you said, your family. How many people have we known who fight with their relatives? It’s kind of a fight between creative male energy and destructive anger, and kind of like who will win is what this play is. But this is very much Sam Shepherd’s background. He came from a very super dysfunctional alcoholic father background. He didn’t have a brother, but he had two sisters. And I think if he was saying is like, it’s actually two sides of himself. He was kind of a very “enjoy the suburbs” kind of guy versus “I wish I was a cowboy” kind of guy.
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The play was written in 1983, so [at] that moment nobody [talked to] therapists or you wouldn’t admit it. And so all of this is because they can’t talk to each other about it. So much of this is they say, well, mom liked you better. I mean, dad liked you better, and mom sided with Austin. And it was very much about that kind of thing. So I’ve really gone back into the family, put in the details about how much all of that beginning stuff affected them. Sam, his father, actually went around the house, broke all the windows, and tore the front door off. He was that kind of alcoholic. He was not friendly when he was drunk. He was also, strangely, a high school English teacher. So, talk about two sides.
That’s why I think Sam Shepherd has a lot of, he thinks in a lot of metaphors, he thinks in a lot of symbolism because his life was so, this upright military air pilot father, who was also a crazy, crazy alcoholic, was a high school English teacher, respected by people, but then he would come home, beat everyone up and tear the house up.
Cory: I had a great high school English teacher in the 11th or 10th grade. He was one of the high school football coaches, but he was this big, burly guy. He had so much energy and he was interesting. He was very theatrical at the same time. But then he just demanded your attention in a way a football coach would. But then at the same time, he would go into theater-mode and just, I remember him reciting Beowulf lines and this, that and the other, and everybody was just drawn in. It was like, ah, okay. I’m listening. One of those [orators] who just pull you in.
Phil: That’s why there are inspirational people and there are people you have to stay away from. And I think that’s what he kind of looks at in this. Who are you going to be? Choose. I’m fascinated by this. I’ve learned so much about human nature, about this play, and I have two great actors…that most of the people in theater know, a guy named Jason Maddy playing the loose cannon [character] Lee, and probably San Diego’s most famous male actor, David McBean, who happens to be gay [in our play]. I happen to know a lot of gay brothers or gay and straight brothers who fight like they’re ready to kill each other. Kind of a twist in this play that hasn’t been done in a long time – because really since the pandemic, and [the] “Me Too” [movement], this play is kind of considered passé. Sam Shepherd isn’t really done that much anymore because there was the “Me Too” movement and COVID and George Floyd, so much happened where there was a lot more emphasis on, you can’t treat each other like that anymore.
Cory: Right. The bullying as a topic rather than just reality that everyone deals with.
Phil: So I think that really puts it in a new light. This play needed a bit of freshening up because it’s, it’s not really done anymore.
So, I think it’s going to wake people up because a lot of the plays we have are more understanding. They’re more diverse, they’re more, this is a really well-written play about something that isn’t really out there so much anymore because bad male behavior is kind of gone with Bill Cosby. So, I’m kind of trying to take another look at it in the new eye of the present. And I think people will see a lot of reasons men are so lost just because they can’t talk about anything.
Cory: Yeah. Well, there’s a lot of truth to that statement.
Yeah. That’s how every conversation with my dad is talking at each other. Well, I’d say him talking at me, but me trying to talk to him, but it doesn’t happen. So, you get to a point where you just realize, maybe I’ll get one an ounce of this pound [of discussion] through and I’ll just have to take it for what it is. Yeah. So, bad male behavior mentioned.
Phil: What’s crazy about this play, actually, Cory, is that it’s hilariously funny.
Cory: The thing that I liked about it as I was reading through it, it just drives itself. It’s got such a nice tempo to it. The beats and the return beats, they’re just right there. And it’s a tough thing to put down unless you just get distracted. But it’s definitely one of the faster reads of several I’ve been reading recently, and I enjoyed that part of it.
So, you mentioned the actors. What was your casting process? Did you just know when you started thinking, I’m going to do this one again. Did you know who you had in mind, or did you have an audition process?
Phil: I auditioned for the smaller parts. It’s a four person play. I auditioned for mom and I auditioned somebody for Saul, the producer, but the two guys I knew, because they’re probably the two best actors in town, and Jason is an absolute fireball. And I knew that David could get very, very intense. So, I knew the ending was going to be great. I didn’t know how he was going to get there, but I knew that it was going to be something to watch. And it is, it’s right where we are. We’re doing that last scene right now, and it’s going to be unbelievable.
Cory: Honestly, I don’t know how you fake that last scene. There’s got to be some visual magic going on to get a phone wrapped around somebody without it actually doing what it would do.
Phil: Right. Well, that’s why we have a great, great fight choreographer, a guy named George Ye.
Cory: From Mesa College, Oh, that’s my play writing teacher.
Phil: Oh, he’s such a straight ahead, straight shooter. I just love him. I love working with him. I wish I could do a play with him. You got to make it real, and you got to beef up the intention. And yesterday he’s laughing during the part where we’re having the guy choked. He’s like, oh, I can make it look even creepier if I did this. So, he’s hilarious.
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So it’s a different kind of humor [than Neil Simon]. Those lines are written and they’re funny. These lines are funny because somebody is talking, trying to speak with authority, and they’re standing there and their pants are all wet and they’re holding a nine iron back on a typewriter.
It’s a type of theatrical comedy where kind-of intense plays sometimes get laughs. And this is hilarious because these clowns are, they’re trying to be taken seriously, and meanwhile they’re rolling around in garbage, or they’re choking each other and saying, listen to me, listen to me while they’re choking.
Cory: So they’re laughing, jokingly playing a competition about whether you can steal a freaking toaster oven.
Phil: Yeah, Until it gets lethal. It’s like your favorite crazy uncle you put in the corner who’s drunk.
Cory: Yeah. No, I mean I’ve had so many arguments with my brother, and I can remember so many times it would just be a dumb dare. And then that you wouldn’t think the other person would go through with it, but then the next day you feel compelled [by male testosterone and ego].
Phil: Right. And that’s what Sam Shepherd writes a lot about. He writes a lot about ridiculous male behavior trying to be taken seriously.
Cory: Yeah. So, in terms of set design, really most of it takes part in one part of the house. So, it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of moving parts there. So, to shift mood, do the lighting elements play a stronger role in the transitions?
Phil: Yeah. We have a great lighting designer. A great lighting designer, and her job is to make it, it’s in a very bright 80’s kitchen, and if you’ve read the stage directions and everything, it’s a very, it’s almost nondescript, the kitchen. So, what you end up watching is the two brothers change. The set is kind of really a background, so it’s not the most interesting set in the world. You’re really watching these two, every scene turn darker and messier, and they’re trashing mom’s house. And then she in and said, where’s my plants? You were going to water. And then they’re like eight-year-olds. Right. They’re like eight-year-olds caught messing up mom’s rug. Right. So that’s why it’s so funny, because the behavior goes childish pretty quickly.
So, the lighting’s very important in this. And as is the sound, this is going to have a real kind of brasher country western score going onto to it.
I don’t know all the names. It’s very, very hip. And so I told him, heavy metal country Western.
It’s so American. It’s always that idea of, oh, there’s freedom and new horizon in the West, but the reality of my suburban somewhat corporate life, will I ever find this? It’s like, what is the American dream anymore? It’s really looking at that. What did I really want? What am I taking now? And some of that is how has that affected America? Especially look at the politics we’re in right now. It’s a mess.
Cory: Was there any one specific moment in this production that you find particularly powerful?
Phil: There are so many. I guess probably there’s several where they each realize something about their family and it haunts them when Austin, or when Lee realizes that he didn’t know that dad had all his teeth pulled out, and Dad never confided.
Those kind of moments, those kind of family betrayals. They’re so important in this play. But probably the biggest moment is that Austin could change so much that he’d actually kill his brother. He would actually go ahead and kill his brother, and then they retreat for the end of the play, and you don’t know who’s going to live. And they’ve basically turned into animals.
Cory: The Lord of the Flies scenario. Right?
Phil: So that’s why it’s a tragedy. A comedy is something that ends in a reunion, usually like a marriage and a tragedy always ends in a death, and you don’t know which or both of them are going to be killed. But the fact that they could both turn into animals is that they didn’t take the male creative energy. They took the male destructive energy.
So that’s why it’s so full of learning. I think you can get so much out of this play, and that’s how it’s really well written is when you get more than like, wow, wasn’t that fun? Wasn’t that amazing? And that’s fun too. But a well-written play tells you something that you can learn for your life.
Cory: It’s definitely one I could reread. It’s not like you’re reminding me of these nuggets that I already forgot about that I read last week, and I’m like, oh yeah. All right. Last doozy. All right. If Sam Shepherd were still alive to see your production, what would you want to ask him?
Phil: Oh my God. Well, I’ve always wondered, and I’ve always wondered what happens the moment after Lee stands up? Do they kill each other? Does one get killed? But that’s why he leaves it like that. What do you think is going to happen? What do you think happens when they haul off and does he kill Austin? Does Austin manage to kill him? Do they both get killed? Do they actually finally talk for once in their lives?
Cory: Do they just get tired of fighting after a while?
Phil: Yeah. And the way you think it goes, I think tells you about what you think about how males interact in our society. That’s why it’s such a good play.
I got to come out of this alive, and you’ve got to be destroyed. Kind of, what do they call that? Zero sum game.
Yeah. So that’s their choice at the end of this play could have gone another way, but it didn’t.
Cory: Yeah. I found it very realistic.
Phil: Unfortunately, these two are so damaged by their dad and probably their mom, who their mom isn’t really taking them in. You kids go play outside the house.
Cory: Well, you can fight outside. Yeah. I love that. She’s like, I don’t think you should keep pulling on that [phone cord]. You guys should really take this outside. No acknowledgement of what’s actually happening.
Phil: Right, right. I mean, she’s probably pretty damaged too. We’ve kind of come up with, the dad burned the house down in this, and she moved to another house. She moved to get away from him to the suburbs and this clean little house. So she’s used to looking the other way.
Cory: Where is the setting, I forget, is it San Bernardino?
Phil: We actually kind of figured, we looked at a map and we tried to figure out what was 40 miles from this and 10 miles. So it’s Rancho Cucamonga.
Cory: I’m really looking forward to this. Thank you for putting this one on and giving me the opportunity to investigate this play, and thank you for explaining some background on how you’re pulling it together. I’m really looking forward to it.
Phil: Great!
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B.T.W. This is one of the best productions I’ve seen in San Diego. So, I really hope that many of you take some time to check this one out.
It’s playing at the Diversionary Theatre, located at 4545 Park Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92116, in University Heights, from now until April 13th. Give it a go, I promise you won’t forget this one!
