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Probably no group knows more about the layers of human nature than writers. Good ones, that is.

Playwright Sam Shepard, one of the good ones, set out deliberately to explore the double nature of people in his 1980 play "True West."

The thing about two sides is that odds are that not both are going to be good. Shepard knows this.

Double nature is "not so cute, not something we can get over," he has said. But it's "something we've got to live with."

In "True West," he plumbs this phenomenon in the story of two brothers — Austin, a well-mannered, Hollywood screenwriter and good family man, and his older brother, Lee, a small-time crook and a big-time loser.

When the two meet by chance in their absent mother's neat, Southern California suburban home, odd things begin to happen.

Before the play's done, Lee, the bum who lives in the desert because he doesn't fit in anywhere else, is trying to write a screenplay.

And Austin, a polished person if not an exceptionally gifted writer, is stealing toasters and trying to strangle Lee.

So what's Shepard's deal here?

Leigh-Ann Santillanes, who is directing "True West" for the Vortex Theater, said the question is, "Have the two brothers begun to live each other's lives, or do the men represent opposite sides of a single creative artist?"

The answer?

"I think it's both," Santillanes said. "In a way they really are two sides.

"Austin is fulfilling his duties of being a father and a husband and going through all the appropriate channels to get what he wants. And Lee goes in and out of windows so no one can touch him."

It could be, she said, that Austin secretly envies his brothers hit-and-run lifestyle, a life filled with risk but no responsibility.

"Austin wants so badly to be successful at something," Santillanes said "and he's not having success at his writing career, so maybe he will have success at taking over his brother's life."

Stealing household appliances can't be as tough as writing, can it?

That's what Lee wants to find out.

After all, Santillanes said, Lee is good at taking things that don't belong to him and creativity sometimes comes from stealing other people's stuff.

"There really are no more original ideas," she said. "It's all the same human story."

Santillanes, 32, is a Los Angeles native who has a bachelor's degree in theater and English literature from the University of Puget Sound and a master's of fine arts in youth theater from Arizona State University.

She moved to Albuquerque in June 2004 and has directed and/or acted at the Vortex, the Adobe Theater and the Albuquerque Little Theater. She is creative drama instructor for ALT's education program.

"True West" happens to be one of her favorite human stories. She directed it in Tucson a few years back.

"Every time I read it, it touches me," she said. "It really lets you see that there is this duality in everything. It is so funny, so very, very funny. But at the same time, it is very, very serious.

"And things that are funny one night, are very, very sad the next."

The play also can be unsettling, if not terrifying, in its violence, as when Austin tries to strangle Lee.

"You almost think that comes out of nowhere," Santillanes said. "It can be seen as Austin just snapping and lashing out with this murderous rage."

But, as Shepard points out in this play, there are two sides to everything, two ways of seeing everything.

"It can also be seen as a slow building to this point, the final showdown," Santillanes said. "How long do you think Lee has been torturing Austin? Maybe it just came to a point where Austin feels like he has to take him down."