This play is about transformation. With Austin becoming more like Lee and vice versa. In the middle the characters meet at a common ground and by the end Austin has nearly killed his brother, a man he was scared to be around at the beginning of the play. Shepard creates the story in order to examine the double nature of a human being. This is an issue that he believes we all have and it comes from a deeper place than our minds. It is an issue of our heart and soul being aligned to the truth of who we are, which these men do not have as they were abandoned by their parents. They were left to raise themselves rather than being taught the necessary tools to navigate life and all of its pains.
The result of this abandonment is two men--one who appears to have it all together and the other who seems to have fallen completely off the rails--who believe that who they are is based on their success in life. And how they deal with hard times is to run away into a metaphorical and literal desert like their father, or go on vacation while the house is being torn down like their mother. Without the proper guidance of their souls (mind, will, emotions) these two men were left to create some version of themselves that they could stand with an underbelly that has the potential to kill lying just under the surface. We watch as both men transform to become an expression of rage towards one another through the betrayal of a screenplay, and then the betrayal of trust between the two of them. Thus the play ending with the two brothers facing off shows us that they still have a choice, to kill one another or to work through the pain of what is staring them right in the face in order to find any sort of hope and good for the future.
