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Things fall apart in Sam ShepardsTrue West.

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Its funny and nasty, debauched yet dramatically laser-focussed.

I just wanted to give a taste of what it feels like to be two-sided …

I think were split in a much more devastating way than psychology can ever reveal.

Its not so cute.

Not some little thing we can get over.

Its something weve got to live with.

Hes gritty and grandiose, outwardly sloppy and inwardly sharp, and very psychologically dangerous.

Hes so recessive for so long that Lee has nothing much to push against.

But the road to get there has been long and frustratingly flat.

And in all of us.

With two wild animals now released, moms kitchen doesnt have a chance.

Thats what happens on the page, at least.

In Macdonalds production, mayhem is aesthetically approximated, but it never really kicks us in the guts.

When are we most fully ourselves when we keep it together or when we fall apart?

Shepards brilliance is to answerboth, both, both.

Macdonald and his designers put the plays pandemonium on display, as if in a meticulously constructed museum diorama.

True Westis at the American Airlines Theatre through March 17.