There’s something emotionally satisfying about destruction. Call it art, call it decadence — hell, call it dangerous — but no matter how you label it, on some level it feels really good to watch a furious Josh Ryder obliterate an electric typewriter with a golf club.

Playwright Sam Shepard and director Gavin Reub both know this, as is obvious in this quarter’s Undergraduate Theater Society production of True West.

Considered a commentary on the American dream, True West has a bit more at stake. It tells the story of two very different brothers, one a successful screenwriter, the other a desert vagabond, who come together to take care of their mother’s house. When Lee, the drifter, appropriates a script deal from his brother, the tension rapidly escalates as the brothers try to collaboratively write a western.

While Reub’s production acknowledges the American dream as a necessary backbone to the production, the performances center on frustrated sibling inequality and a desire to escape society. It’s a short, intense play that builds well and deals with more primal emotions.

Josh Ryder plays Lee, the hard-living social outcast with a hair trigger and a questionable demeanor. Ryder gives a manic performance that, under precarious control, is striking. Andrew Murray plays his brother Austin, the gentle screenwriter with a family and successful career. Murray delivers a memorable performance in the latter half of the play, when his frustrations with society reach a breaking point.

The dynamic between the two leads is in constant flux. While Lee is an unstable character from the outset, Austin goes through a psychological decline throughout the play. As their efforts at screenwriting fall by the wayside, it soon becomes clear that a cooperative effort is not in the cards.

In the second half of True West, the characters’ emotions are manifest in destruction. The set gets trashed. Chairs are flipped, plates are flung, beer is sprayed and heads collide with refrigerators. The futility of their seemingly unending downward spiral is, at times, sickening.

True West is the kind of play in which pacing is crucial. The gradual escalation in energy, physicality and crunched beer cans give the play its emotional power. Both lead actors control the pace well, each doing his part to either rev up or tone down the action.

The desert setting is punctuated by the somber sounds of coyotes and accentuated by the dimly lit kitchen set. By the time their mother (Sidney Hunt) shows up, the stage is wall-to-wall rubble. Lee and Austin are panting and covered in beer and toast and the viewer is exhausted. It’s almost cathartic. While the acting is clearly up to par, the credit must be shared. Shepard knows how to write roles actors can really sink their teeth into.

The lively script and great canvas for sensational displays of emotion make True West one of those plays you might just have to see to believe.

Reach reporter Trevor Pendras at arts@dailyuw.com.