Review: The west is won in Dallas Theater Center’s reworking of ‘Shane’
When Shane walked onto the stage in a slow motion dressed in dusty black cowboy garb, he immediately commanded attention. The introduction to the title character of Dallas Theater Center’s current production entered like a dream with an air of danger and pride.
In Karen Zacarias’ adaptation of the Jack Schaefer novel and under Blake Robison’s direction, the Western held on to the genre’s heroic nature, but with a poetic grim that mixed in race dynamics and the intricacies that come with it.
This ain’t your grandpa’s Western — this was better. Set in Wyoming, the story centers on the lone cowboy who meets and befriends the Starrett family of three.
Shane is Black. The family is Hispanic. Already, this Western looks different as it works to fill the voids in the genre where people of color are either villainized, erased or stereotyped.
