In Sam Shepard's plays, the family is the landscape and the landscape is America. His plots portray brutal struggles between brothers, spouses or lovers over what's been buried from their past and what was left out to fester. Shepard's characters have a need to spin their troubled histories into legends, and, when the legends fail, they pull up stakes and move on to try and start fresh. Yet, invariably, they drag the past with them like a not-quite-dead weight.

The Late Henry Moss is true Shepard territory. There's the trailer-as-shack existence on some forgotten desert fringe, the stink of sun-baked death in the air and two brothers circling each other around a kitchen table like two feral toms. Loneliness becomes a geographical reality in Shepard's world. But there's also a metaphysical element juxtaposed with the punishing physical world, creating something like a dirty magic realism.

Henry Moss was dead before he died. His whore companion, Conchalla Lupina, pronounced him dead when they were sharing a jail cell, and her opinion haunts Henry as much as his dead body haunts his two sons, Ray and Earl.

Earl has been guarding the body for a few days before Ray arrives. Earl tells Ray that he was notified by Henry's neighbor, Esteban, about their father. By the time Earl arrived, Henry was dead. Ray doesn't quite believe Earl's story, and starts questioning his brother further. It's evident that the brothers are estranged. Neither, for instance, knows whether the other one has a family — something they've no doubt wondered all their lives.

Ray's suspicion of his brother only increases when Esteban arrives with a bowl of soup for Henry, not realizing that he's dead. Esteban is probably the only friend Henry ever had, and even he's not much. Though he continually cooked for Henry, there's a noted lack of deep affection for the man. Esteban describes feeding Henry like anyone would "livestock" or "birds."

The last stranger to see Henry alive turns out to be a taxi driver from Albuquerque, whom Ray tracks down. After he's dragged out to the shack, the young, garrulous cabbie quickly gets on Ray's nerves before finally revealing that he left Henry in the care of two people, Conchalla and a man. Ray then starts putting the pieces together.

Michal Lang's production is solid with a good cast of core Švandovo players. The brothers — Ivan Řezáč as Earl and Tomáš Pavelka as Ray — are like a furious Mutt and Jeff. Having admired his older brother growing up, Ray now looks down on him — literally so, with the tall, lithe Pavelka towering over the more compact Řezáč, whose only defense is a calculated vehemence that erupts from his lips when he's starting to feel cornered. Řezáč, often seated center, is mouse to Pavelka's cat, who prowls the sides and corners of the stage.

As Henry, Stanislav Šárský brings a delicate humor and grace to a man who not only managed to destroy his own family, but has done a fairly thorough job of killing himself. Drunk but never drunken, Šárský only comes to life with the cancerous self-doubt of his existence after Conchalla delivers his obituary.

Klára Cibulková's Conchalla is like a contained storm. Both earthy and mystical, she seems to hold the powers of life and death in her hands. Although she can easily command a stage, Cibulková keeps her power in check until the proper moment to unleash it. It's an elemental performance.

Martin Sitta's Esteban and Matěj Hádek as the taxi driver are also good. Hádek is particularly effective as the big-talking runt who wants to bed Miss Oklahoma, only to be reduced to quivering at the sight of the naked Conchalla.