True West | Australian Arts Review

A wickedly funny and scorching tale of sibling rivalry by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated actor Sam Shepard, Ensemble Theatre will present True West from 8 September to 11 October 2025.

Directed by Iain Sinclair (The Caretaker, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) with assistant director Anna Houston (Aria, Seymour Centre’s Arlington), True West pits brother against brother in this critically acclaimed and muscular exploration of masculinity in America.

Forty miles east of Los Angeles, Austin has found a writing oasis in his mother’s empty home while she’s abroad. His latest film project has the potential to sell big in Hollywood. In the peace and quiet of the desert, he taps away at his typewriter – until the silence is shattered by his wayward brother, Lee, stumbling unexpectedly through the door.

As they fight for control over each other, the pair are swept up in a volatile tornado of flared tempers, resentment and self-loathing destruction.

“Last time I was at the Ensemble Theatre directing Harold Pinter’s play The Caretaker it showed me a back door to the subconscious. My plan this time is to sneak in that same door again in search of Sam Shepard and his blasted American dream,” says director Iain Sinclair.

True West features an all-star cast of four including acclaimed Australian screen and stage actress Vanessa Downing (Uncle Vanya, The Busy World Is Hushed), Darcy Kent (Melbourne Shakespeare Co’s Hamlet, TV’s Offspring), James Lugton (The Great Divide, A Doll’s House) and Simon Maiden (GWB Entertainment’s Death of A Salesman, Film: The Dressmaker).

Darkly comedic and breathtakingly volatile, this classic two-hander by one of our generation’s finest playwrights is not to be missed.