by Joe Buffaloe
Daily Lobo
If you've ever fantasized about killing your brother, this is the play for you.
"The Lonesome West," which continues its run at Theatre X this Wednesday through Saturday, is the story of Coleman and Valene Conner, two brothers in Ireland who divide their time between threatening to kill each other and driving their priest to drink. Were it a TV show, it would be the most popular sitcom in hell.
Death is a constant presence in the play - the Irish town where it is set has recently experienced a rash of unexplained murders and its suicide rate is off the charts. The exploration of mortality is dark and moving at times, but usually hilarious. Who would have thought that you could get an entire theater to laugh at the line, "I hope she relapses into that coma and dies"?
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
It's about the two main characters more than it's about death, though. Coleman, played by David Horowitz, is sarcastic, unemployed and generally carefree - except when he's melting his brother's religious figurines in the oven or mutilating dogs. Valene, played by Charlie Dearing, is absurdly materialistic and shallow. Their fights reach the height of stupidity only attainable when members of the same family go at it - by the end of the play, they've trashed the set over a bag of potato chips more times than I can count.
In the intimate setting of Theatre X, their explosions of rage are as frightening as they are funny. A claustrophobic feeling emerges - just like the two brothers, the audience is confined to a small space and forced to ride out wave after wave of seething pain and hatred. You're never more than 30 seconds away from a laugh in this play, but violence can pop up just as quickly.
The priest, played by Alex Caulfield, provides a great source of tension as the voice of reason. Naturally, being a caring, decent person, earns him more ridicule than respect. His struggle to calm the violent, self-destructive tendencies of his parishioners is like a child trying to stop a freight train with a Nerf ball. The play vividly portrays the conflict between the rational being and the uncontrollable, violent animal in every person, reminiscent of Lord of the Flies.
Lydia Salazar rounds out the play as Girleen, a teenage girl who sells potato whiskey on the sly and harbors a major crush for the priest. She serves as another source of guilt for the two brothers, and she also occupies the middle ground between their frightening shallowness and the priest's pathetic, tormented moralism.
The title of the play is not meant to suggest it will feature cattle rustling or gunfights outside a saloon - it's actually a reference to J.M. Synge's "Playboy of the Western World." But the more one thinks about it, the more similarities there are between Ireland and our part of the world - we both have high rates of alcoholism, high rates of violent crime and a lot of latent guilt due to Catholicism. And who hasn't thought about committing murder for a potato chip, at least once?
"The Lonesome West"
Theatre X
Wednesday through Saturday, 7:30 p.m.
$7 staff/students
Grade: A
