Brothers in Arms

Austin is a mid-level screenwriter currently house-sitting for his mother. Strangely, it's his shiftless brother, Lee, who has nailed down a new writing job: Lee's been hired by an unctuous Hollywood producer to produce a script for the last "true" Western. The brothers end up sharing the house because Lee wants Austin to help him with the writing. But confined up there in the California hills with just each other for company, Austin and Lee fall into brotherly squabbling. And the more they fight, the more they realize that one of them has always been a frustrated writer and one has always been a petty thief — but maybe Austin's the thief and Lee's the writer. Sam Shepard's True West dives deeply into the strange dynamic of brotherly love and comes back with some darkly comic observations on the American family. Tin Ceiling presents True West at 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday (July 11 through 27) at the Tin Ceiling (3159 Cherokee Street; 314-374-1511 or www.tinceiling.org). Tickets are $10.
Fridays-Sundays. Starts: July 11. Continues through July 27, 2008