Fight Club = True West
Recently my english class started learning various symbolism through the play True West by Sam Shepard.
True West is about the sibling rivalry between two estranged brothers who have reconnected. Austin, the younger brother, is a Hollywood screenwriter writing a screenplay while house sitting for his mother, who is vacationing in Alaska. His older brother, Lee, appears at the house after the two have not seen each other for years. Lee is a drifter and thief and has been living in the desert. The two are not on good terms, but Austin attempts to appease his older brother, who is more dominant. - wikipedia
Through the play Austin start to switch roles with Lee, similar to Jack becoming Tyler Durden in Fight Club. This is due to Austin becoming depressed of his normal life.
I also thought it would be possible that, like Fight Club, Austin is becoming tired of his own life so he develops a Dissociative identity disorder and creates the personality of Lee. (Maybe his mother and Saul as well)
I just thought there is numerous similairities between True West and Fight Club.
Heres the 1st part, played by John Malkovich and Gary Sinise
Parts 1 - 12 are avaliable on youtube if you would like to watch it.
If you think it's boring, at least skip to the part in which they fight over toast.
I thought it was boring at first, but It's starting to grow on me.
Notice in the beginning Lee is behind the bars, similar to flashes of Tyler Durden in Fight Club.
Anybody want to add on that?
I curse the last six months
I've been hiding behind a mustache, yeah.
I had to do a scene from True West in my Acting 1 class. I was Austin.
I haven't gotten to True West yet (my acting class last semester was sadly not the one with the Shepard obsessed teacher), but everything else I've read by Sam Shephard has been thoroughly screwed up enough to hold my interest.
Now that I've heard about this likely comparison, I'm definitely going to have to check out True West.
True West, as with most of Shepard's plays, is damn good. I hadn't really thought about doing a compare/contrast with FC, but it could be an interesting dissection to make.