True West

Originally aired on American public television, True West is a filmed performance of the Steppenwolf Theater Company's production of Sam Shepard's sibling rivalry play. John Malkovich plays a drifter who comes back home to patch up differences--as well instigate new ones--with his brother, a ...more

The film is a record of the legendary Steppenwolf Theater production with which the celebrated troupe first broke through on the New York stage in 1982. A far more successful version of the Sam Shepard play than the earlier Peter Boyle/Tommy Lee Jones production at the Public Theater which had sparked a highly publicized battle between Shepard and impresario Joseph Papp, it remains fascinating despite the obvious limitations of such a project. Arguably one of the playwright's masterpieces, the ...more