By ROBERT OSBORNE 
The Hollywood Reporter 

NEW YORK Sam Shepard's "True West" is about to be given le grande test: Can it have a Broadway life after the departure of the two golden aces (both Tony nominees) who are heading the cast, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly? 

"West" will continue at the Circle in the Square after the departure of Hoffman and Reilly three weeks hence, with Josh Brolin ("Hollow Man") and Elias Koteas ("The Thin Red Line") taking over June 21. 

The new boys have big boots to fill, but both come equipped with more stage experience than would appear at first glance -- Brolin spent five years with the GeVa theater company in Rochester, N.Y., and Koteas has long been active with the Ensemble Studio theater and the Actors Studio. 

For the first five weeks of their "West" run, Brolin will play the screenwriter, Koteas the drifter. In late July, they'll switch roles for 10 performances. And on Aug. 7, they'll begin alternating the parts on a regular basis, as Hoffman and Reilly have been doing on Broadway since the play opened in March 1999.