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Writing for Us
A CurtainUp Review
August: Osage County
By Elyse Sommer
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It's a damn fine day to tell the truth!.— Not everyone would agree with the high on pills Violet that a funeral dinner is the ideal time for serving up accusations and painful secrets.
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Deanna Dunagan as Violet Weston
(Photo by Joan Marcus) |
Unlike Letts' raunchy thrillers, Killer Joe and Bugs, August: Osage County belongs to a long line of memorable plays about dysfunctional families whose members fight their weaknesses (booze, drugs, depression, adultery, guilt) and each other. Think Long Day's Journey into Night The Little Foxes, Crimes of the Heart, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Death of a Salesman. But expect a completely unique and distinctive addition to this genre.
The plot device that brings the Weston clan to Todd Rosenthal's exquisitely detailed three-story house outside Pawhuska, Oklaoma maybe almost too facile, but it works. Beverly Weston (Dennis Letts, the author's father) gets the first scene which prepares us for the familiar but forever shocking emotional baggage to be unpacked. In what amounts to a long monologue, Beverly interviews Johanna Monevata (Kimberly Guerrero), a young Indian woman, for a job as housekeeper for the ramshackle house and as caretaker for his pill-addicted, cancer stricken wife Violet (a riveting no-holds barred Deanna Dunagan).
The old-fashioned three-story dollhouse set can easily lull us into thinking we might be wrong to anticipate that Letts will roll out of a barrel full of Weston woes. But this is at best momentary. Even before that digressive opening scene interview is over, Violet Weston descends the circular staircase, a delicate looking woman, whose bent-over walk is as painful to watch as it must feel. Pain and regret have given her tongue an extra-sharp razor's edge (an ironic metaphor, given that it's mouth cancer she's suffering from).
So there we have the people at the top of the Weston family tree: a book loving erstwhile poet and teacher whose world is becoming like John Berryman's poem, "a place where I do not care to be anymore.". And so, he drinks, his wife takes pills, and their relationship is clearly on the skids. Unsurprisingly, their three daughters are the apples whose fall from this tree is too close to escape the rot at its root. Seeing that rot exposed is unfailingly absorbing and, remarkably and frequently, extremely funny.
Once the gentlemanly alcoholic Beverly has hired Johanna, sealed the bargain by giving her a book of poetry and goes missing, the rest of the clan arrives to stand by the ailing and at her wits end Violet. First on scene is the unmarried middle daughter who lives nearby, 44-year-old Ivy (Sally Murphy). Though she apparently has a responsible job at the nearby college, she still suffers the slings and arrows of her mother's supposedly well-meaning, but mean spirited digs at her failure to attract a man. Violet gives with one hand and takes with the other. ("You're the prettiest of my three girls but you always look like such a mope. . .your shoulders are slumped and your hair's all straight and you don't wear makeup. You look like a lesbian"). Her belief in makeup is hilariously unshakable ("The only woman who was pretty enough to go without makeup was Elizabeth Taylor and she wore a ton.") Actually, Ivy does have a man in her life —but that another dark secret to be unfolded.
Ivy's sisters, having fled this toxic nest, will arrive later; first Barbara Fordham (the superb Amy Morton), the oldest, from Colorado and last, Karen (Mariann Mayberry) the youngest, from Florida. Barbara's familial troubles are quickly unpacked—Bill (Jeff Perry), her husband of twenty-three years, is having an affair with one of his students and teen-aged daughter Jean (an amusingly bratty Madeleine Martin) is a pothead whose couch potato habits are hardly what one expects from the daughter of two college professors. This situation, like Barbara's menaupausal hot flashes, is hardly helped by the crisis in the old homestead or Barbara's feelings for her mother ("I'm wishing my father was here. . .and my mother was the one who disappeared"). Sister Karen, is another relationship loser, but just as Barbara's world is coming apart, Karen has finally got things together; at least so it seems, except that her fiance (Brian Kerwin) turns out to be not quite the kind of man to insure a long and happy life together.
As with any old-fashioned kitchen sink drama like this, there are peripheral characters to add to the color and complications (which includes incest). I've already mentioned Johanna, the efficient but silent Indian girl, the one totally sane and steady person in this house who must surely be wondering why her forbears were too meek to allow these weak folks from taking their land. There's also Violet's vulgar sister, Mattie Fae Aiken (Rondi Reed making her deliciously brassy and detestable). Like Violet, she has a gift for tactless putdowns, especially of her long suffering husband , Charlie (Francis Guinan), and her meek and ineffective (at least when he's around her) adult son who's still called "Little" Charles (Ian Barford). And to end the suspense about Beverly's whereabouts, there's Sheriff Deon Gilbeau (a wonderful Gary Cooper-like Troy West) who happens to have been Barbara's high school beau.
While not violent like Letts's previous plays, and not really like the O'Neill and company plays it will be likened to because of its abundance of laughter inducing scenes (one of the funniest is Charlie awkwardly saying grace at a family dinner), there's no way August: Osage County can have a happy ending. All except Violet and Johanna exit this house of miscommunication and pentup resentments — their lives remaining realistically unassured of happier times to come. The luckiest and wisest one of them all is, you guessed it, the father.
Ultimately, bad news for the Westons, Fordhams and Aikens is good news for theater goers who appreciate a well-made, well-staged, well-acted and thoroughly engaging play. My crystal ball shows a Pulitzer looming in the distance.
To read our review of the play during its Chicago premiere go here.
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AUGUST: Osage County By Tracy Letts Directed by Anna D. Shapiro Cast:Ian Barford ("Little Charles" Atkins), Deanna Dunagan (Violet Weston), Kimberly Guerrero (Johnna Monevata), Francis Guinan (Charlie Aiken), Brian Kerwin (Steve Heidebrecht), Dennis Letts (Beverly Weston), Madelleine Martin (Jean Fordham), Mariann Mayberry (Karen Weston), Amy Morton (Barbara Fordham), Sally Murphy (Ivy Weston), Jeff Perry (Bill Fordham), Rondi Reed (Mattie Fae Aiken), Troy West (Sheriff Deon Gilbeau). Sets by Todd Rosenthal Costumes by Ana Kuzmanic Lighting by Ann G. Wrightson Sound by Richard Woodbury OriginalMusic by David Singer Dramaturgy by Edward Sobel Fight choreographer: Chuck Coyl Dialect coach: Cecilie O'Reilly Running time: 3 hours, 18 minutes, includes 2 intermission Steppenwolf Theatre company at the Imperial Theatre, 245 West 45th Street, 212/239-6200 Fom 10/30/07; opening 12/04/07; closing 3/09/08--extended twice. Now closing 4/13/08; Tuesday @ 7:30pm, Wednesday @ 2pm & 7:30pm, Thursday - Friday @ 7:30pm, Saturday @ 2pm & 8pm, Sunday @ 3pm. Tickets $26.50 to $99.50; premium seats at $176.50. Reviewed by Elyse Sommer at Dec. 2, 2007 matinee |
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