True West - Summary Introduction To Theater PDF

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True West Summary ...

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True West  Setting- California, Mom’s kitchen  Mom is in Alaska, dad is somewhere in desert  Called True West- compass point, the real west, lots of speech about what it means to be American, talking about the frontier  Austin wants to move away from California, into the desert to find an adventure, and everything is the same to him in California (homogenized) 

Characters start as dynamic opposites, become closer together, and switch by the end of the play.

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What is America? What are the real American people like?

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Lee says family type people kill each other the most Austin is writing a screen play by candlelight in the beginning of the play and lee says it reminds him of the forefathers

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Mom wants sons to visit Picasso even though he is dead

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Austin says that Saul thinks him and lee are the same person Objectives- what a character or actor wants Super objective of both these characters is to have the other brothers life

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Two sides of the artist (lee and Austin) o Austin represents organizational, structural, intellectual o Lee is more impulsive, imagination, wildness o Id- Lee (a sexualized five year old) o Superego-Austin (exposed by society)

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Are movies art or a business? o Austin thinks Saul is doing Lee’s movie b/c he hustled him on the golf course

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Lee tours neighborhood to steal things (Lee’s objective-what he wants)

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Lee pictures Austin walking around a fancy ivy league school with blondes next to him

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Austin pictures lee as an adventurer

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Called true west b/c people are searching for the perfect America Suburban California vs the mythic west (represented by Lee’s movie)

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Western Idea and Dream idea of America does not exist Page 23- lee telling story of lonely art of brave- you hear horse screaming at the end of it….knows that his horse has died…kirk douglas has died from the death of his horse…

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Page 29 killing- -lee gives Austin his keys back- talk about killing

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Page 49- old man losing his teeth-old man tried to disappearAustin says- he lost his real teeth one at a time, he wants to get them all pulled but he has no money…”

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Page 50-costs a lot to have teeth yanked….some are more expensive than others…takes off hitchhiking to the border…dentist takes all of his money and all of his teeth…drops teeth in doggie back with chop suey…took doggie bag to bars, left doggie bag with teeth in the bars, never found it…” story about the real authentic west (austins p.o.v of real west, not Lee’s screenright”

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End of play- Austin almost strangles Lee to death, then lee pops up and stares at Austin- almost like a Mexican stand off-Cain and Abel

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