Exploring “Absent Presence” and “offstage Space” in Sam Shepard’s True West

There are several dramatic characters who enormously appeal to us since they are attractive. Part of this attraction might be owing to their strong stage presence. More interesting, however, are characters who do not appear on stage but their “absent presence” is so strong that influences the characters who do appear physically on stage. There are numerous examples of plays from classic to modern in which the action of the play is driven by a character who is not materially present but is thematically central to the play. The present paper explores the “absent presence” in Sam Shepard’s True West (1980) to show how a character who is not physically present on stage can affect the lives and decisions of character who do have material presence on stage. The examination of this device can not only reveal multiple layers of the play, but can also attract the attention of playwrights to this device to explore it in their plays.  This is a qualitative research for which library sources and reliable Internet sites have been utilized.