About the work
True West is a play by American playwright Sam Shepard, written in 1980 for San Francisco's Magic Theatre, where he was resident playwright at the time. It premiered there on July 10, 1980, directed by Robert Woodruff, with Peter Coyote and Jim Haynie in the lead roles.
Plot
In a suburb east of Los Angeles, orderly screenwriter Austin is visited by his older brother Lee, a drifter fresh from the desert. When a Hollywood producer favors Lee's improvised western pitch over Austin's carefully crafted love story, the brothers literally trade places: Austin unravels into theft and drink, while Lee struggles to become a legitimate screenwriter. Their mother returns unannounced to find the house in ruins.
Cultural significance
Alongside Fool for Love and Buried Child, True West is considered one of Shepard's major plays and received a Tony nomination. Its status as a modern classic was cemented above all by Steppenwolf Theatre's 1982 Chicago production, which ran for more than 700 performances. The German translation by Sabine Auf der Heyde is licensed by S. Fischer Theaterverlag under the title 'Goldener Westen' and has been staged, among others, at Schauspiel Köln in 1983 and Renaissance-Theater Berlin in 2008.