Panhandle Slim

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of the Purple Rose Theatre, The Tropical Pickle and Shoe Man. In Panhandle Slim & The Oklahoma Kid, which runs through Saturday, August 30, he's tackled the western — not the edgy, self-consciously cool western, like No Country for Old Men, but a more romantic and old-fashioned version that tries to find some meaning in our exits and entrances.

As the play opens, in a golden desert landscape that pours from a golden picture frame, a heartless desperado, Panhandle Slim (Tom Whalen), is dragged onstage and left to die, blood spilling from his guts. And riding in hot on his heels is the Oklahoma Kid (John Seibert), a cross between Gene Autry and Oscar Wilde: the guy who just doesn't see the point of living unless he's running his mouth. He's got a guitar (which is necessary because he's going to be singing a half dozen songs written by Daniels), he's a philosopher, he's a cornpone humorist, he's a gadfly, he's a wit. And in this particular situation, where the one thing a cowboy wants to do is die quietly with some dignity, he's unwanted. (In terms of the actual plot, he also may not be real but rather a hallucination from Slim's dying brain.)