Lee interrupts a meeting Austin is having with a producer about a screenplay he's been working on, and Lee pitches a silly idea for a "true" Western movie that the producer falls in love with. He undeservingly takes his brother's title and they slowly transform into each others' lives while Lee works on "his film" and Austin drinks and steals toasters from all of the neighbors' houses because he bet his brother that he could.
I payed close attention to the script, and I could imagine the lines on paper well...I wasn't sure how much I was enjoying the play in the beginning because it seemed sort of redundant. Lee bothers/embarrasses Austin, Austin rolls eyes. And at the end of the first scene, Austin says, "Why don't you get some sleep?" and Lee stares out into the audience and says "I don't sleep." The lights go out. I thought, Oh, great.
Some things I did really like about the first act, though, was the stage direction. The boys had very specific personalities, and Lee kept doing random things while speaking, such as doing a headstand in the middle of the stage and kicking his legs like he was riding a bike, or after Austin says something confusing he pours his beer on his own head and shakes his hair around and makes a weird noise. I thought those little things were important because while they essentially had no deep meaning, it added greatly to the boys' realistic personalities and situations.
I really liked the second act, though. Austin breaks out of his uptight mold and the boys let loose. They fire witty lines at each other and the acting was phenomenal. It was fast paced and I found myself laughing out loud, being completely stunned and feeling angry all in a matter of five minutes.
In the note from the director Jen Forcino, she mentions that every ten lines or so there is a (pause) in the script. She asked that as an audience we take note of every pause, because they are filled with heartbreak, betrayal, broken promises and loss that both brothers feel but cannot share. I did take note of the pauses, and I thought that they meant as much as the words because in the end, the play was not about the plot. It was about the relationship between these two brothers who seemed so different but "when they're sloshed" (quote from the play) their true colors come out and they seem like almost slightly different facets of the same personality.
The fact that the play was really about their relationship is the reason for the sort of open-ended ending. Their somewhat quirky/senile mother comes home and Austin says that he wants to travel in the desert with his brother. His brother freaks out because he's always wanted Austin's ivy-league lifestyle and they end up brawling. Austin strangles his brother with a telephone chord--Lee lives, and the end left us with an image of Austin and Lee standing in the middle of the stage with clenched fists, scowling at each other and breathing heavily.
When I left the theater, one of the men in the audience turned to me and said, "I didn't get the ending. Did you? No wonder it was eighteen dollars."
Personally, though, I loved the ending. It was as if the play ended with one of those (pause)s and we didn't really have to know what "happens next." I didn't care if Austin went back up North to his wife or kids or if his screenplay was successful, because what I appreciated most was the raw brotherly dialogue and realistic relationship and emotions exchanged between these estranged brothers.
I guess the only thing that the play could improve on would be the first act (which was about 40 minutes). It was purely sequential and I think that perhaps a snippet of the end could have been planted into the beginning to keep the audience guessing what's going on. The other smaller things that bothered me were Lee's strong accent and the trip there and back because 42nd street is INSANE.
Overall, I thought they play was definitely worth seeing and as I said before, I was incredibly impressed with the acting--especially towards the very intense last couple of scenes.
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