The romanticized image of the lone cowboy riding in from the horizon has long been a staple of American mythology. Westerns have made him into a hero, a legend, a ghost of the frontier, but the stories we were raised on rarely told the full truth. The cowboy, as we’ve come to know him, was more than just white men in dusters; nearly a quarter of all cowboys were Black, many others Mexican, some Native. They built the West, shaped its culture, rode its trails, and yet, for much of history, they were erased from the very mythos they helped create.
Karen Zacarías’ Shane, now playing at the Kalita Humphreys Theater through February 16, makes space for those missing voices. It does not attempt to reinvent the Western, nor does it need to. Instead, it leans into its simplicity, allowing that very simplicity to highlight deeper complexities. Based on Jack Schaefer’s 1949 novel, the play gives new depth to its title character, making Shane not just a mysterious drifter but a man shaped by the brutality of his past. This Shane is a descendant of enslaved people, a Black cowboy carrying the weight of history on his back as he rides into Wyoming’s cattle country, finding work and refuge with the Latinx Starrett family. The production, directed by Blake Robison, pulls at the threads of myth and history, and in doing so, reminds us just how many stories were left untold.
From the moment the lights come up, there is a mood, a feeling—something cinematic yet deeply theatrical. The show is built on movement, image, and rhythm. Shane appears as a silhouette against the horizon, head dipped, a shadow against the vastness of the West. Joe Starrett and his young son, Bobby, stand watching as he approaches, their eyes filled with curiosity, hesitation, and awe. The pacing is deliberate, every movement considered, every beat intentional. It’s the kind of opening that makes you lean forward in your seat, drawn in by the sheer presence of the figure before you.
Nathan M. Ramsey, in the role of Shane, carries this presence throughout the performance. He moves like a man who’s seen things he’d rather not speak of, his silences just as telling as his words. There’s a deep well of restraint in his performance, a quiet weight that makes every moment land. “I’m having a blast up there,” Ramsey shared in an interview. “I’m getting to play a real-life cowboy, you know. It’s kind of a dream come true in a lot of ways.” He spoke, too, about the importance of representing the history of Black cowboys: “A quarter of cowboys were Black. But growing up, I didn’t see that much on TV—it was always Clint Eastwood or someone like that. Getting to play this character is powerful.”
And it’s not just Shane who gets a fresh perspective. Joe Starrett, played by Blake Hackler, is more than just the hardworking homesteader—he’s a man caught between worlds, struggling to hold his family together as forces beyond his control close in. Tiffany Solano as Marian Starrett gives a strong, grounded performance. and her chemistry with Shane lingers just under the surface, suggesting something deeper that the play never fully explores. Young Bobby Starrett, played by Esteban Vilchez, serves as the audience’s emotional tether to Shane, his admiration tinged with both excitement and longing. There’s humor in the play, too—moments of levity that cut through the tension, reminders that even in the harshest landscapes, life has joy.
What makes Shane truly stand out, however, is its refusal to take the Western at face value. Zacarías understands the power of the genre, but she also understands its gaps. The play explores masculinity, violence, and justice, but it does so with an awareness that these ideals were often
weaponized, used to justify conquest and erasure. Shane is a man shaped by violence, but he does not glorify it. He carries the ghosts of his past with him, and he knows that the myths told about men like him were rarely true.
“I think about my brother, who was a combat medic and later a Green Beret. When he came back from his first tour in Iraq, he was different. I could sense it. There are things you see and experience that you can’t quite put into words, but they live inside you. War is grotesque. There’s nothing glamorous about it. That’s one of Shane’s truths in the play—when Bobby asks about it like it’s exciting, Shane has to tell him the reality of it.”
Nathan M. Ramsey
The production is visually stunning. Ramsey himself described the staging: “The way the production is staged, the lights, the sound, the transitions—our movement director Vanessa Savero set us up with such beautiful movement that carries the story forward in a very stylized and captivating way.” The show leans into the spectacle of the Western while simultaneously challenging it, using light, sound, and physicality to keep the world dynamic and alive.
By the time the play reaches its inevitable conclusion, we are left with something that lingers—an image, a thought, a feeling that stays in the chest long after the lights have gone down. The production is a quality experience from start to finish. The show knows precisely what it is — a fun Western, a story for the family – and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. People in the audience dressed up in cowboy boots and hats. The audience laughed and smiled, and when the final moment hit, however predictable it may have been with such a familiar story, you could feel the satisfaction in the room.
Shane at Dallas Theater Center is a great night at the theater. It’s fun, it’s beautifully executed, and it taps into something that connects us all. This is a classic Western told with a fresh perspective, and it leaves us walking out of the theater reminded of why we love these stories in the first place. With a tight 90-minute runtime and no intermission, it holds its audience in place, demanding attention, refusing to let its message get lost in the wind. And for a city like Dallas, with its deep Black history and connection to the land, this production is as relevant now as it ever was.
