THEATER : Play About Brothers Is in Actors’ Blood

Ah, brotherly love.

It can be so gloriously . . . warped , so wonderfully . . . nasty . At least that’s Sam Shepard’s take in his twisted ode to sibling rivalry, “True West,” which continues at the Laguna Playhouse through Feb. 7.

The brothers, Lee and Austin, test the notion that blood is thicker than water. When crazy desert rat Lee shows up at the doorstep of his mother’s tacky Duarte home, where crazy screenwriter Austin is trying to finish a script for a Western, things get wicked fast. The two go at each other, dredging up all sorts of family mischief and personal slants on life, love, myths and more.

The production, which recently opened, has received some good reviews, especially because of Peder Melhuse and Andrew Barnicle, who play Lee and Austin, respectively. A Times critic said they “have this play in their blood systems, with all the confidence to really let go when the rules of civilized behavior begin to break down.”

That confidence may come from the fact that Barnicle and Melhuse are more than passingly familiar with this black comedy, having been with the long-running production of “True West” at the Cherry Lane Theater off Broadway during the early to mid-1980s.

Starting in ‘83, both actors understudied for a merry-go-round of stars such as John Malkovich, Jim Belushi and Dennis and Randy Quaid, eventually playing key roles themselves. They became friends on the set, but lost touch.

Until a few months ago.

Melhuse, who primarily acts in Los Angeles these days, was skimming through a brochure put out by the Laguna Playhouse when he noticed a photo of Barnicle, the theater’s artistic director.

“I was just glancing at it, and it dawned on me, ‘Hey, I know this guy!’ ” Melhuse recalled. “Then I saw they were doing ‘True West,’ and I took it from there.

“I’m really happy to be doing this, working with Andy again and getting to do Lee again,” said Melhuse, who replaced Belushi in the role at the Cherry Lane in late 1983.

Barnicle said he had considered staging a Shepard work in Laguna for some time, but his earlier experiences in New York had little to do with it. Barnicle started in the Cherry Lane show as a lighting engineer, moved up to understudying the Quaid brothers and played Lee opposite Dennis Quaid for a few weeks in 1983.

“I didn’t choose ‘True West’ because I was in an earlier production, I chose it because the play has a profound effect on me,” Barnicle explained. “It’s funny, accessible (and it’s) about the encroachment of civilization on the West (as well as an) exploration of family.”

That “exploration of family” is what impresses Joan McGillis, a veteran director with the Laguna Playhouse. Although this is the first time McGillis has tackled “True West,” or any Shepard play, she is struck by how vividly it captures the warped dynamic that can develop between siblings.

“I will concede that this is a stretch for me; it’s not something that I usually do,” she said, “but what I (focus on) is how universal the play is. This is an hysterically funny play that talks about a dysfunctional family situation in really clever ways.”

Laguna Playhouse patrons, not Orange County’s most conservative but generally a community theater crowd nonetheless, may be tested by “True West.” Shepard doesn’t mince words (the language is scatological, honest and modern), or situations.

Lee and Austin, brothers with a lot of rage against life and each other, don’t present an airbrushed picture. But it’s the frankness of their relationship that makes “True West” both funny and involving, agree McGillis, Barnicle and Melhuse.