The Playbill cover from “August: Osage County,” a production by Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company that opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theater in December, sports the silhouette of a standard-looking house balanced on the “T” of “August.” The house holds its position as if working to find a sense of center, in danger either of inverting itself and falling over the edge of the title, or slamming down on the surface of the letter. Its precarious position symbolizes the imbalance that forms a central trope of the play.
The three-story suburban Oklahoma home of Beverly and Violet Weston is an oversized dollhouse that looms over the audience. It provides a backdrop to the overblown and sardonic banter that, for 190 minutes, twists both the variable and reliable aspects of the lives of three generations of Westons into a bizarre and aggressive familial interplay.
Violet (Deanna Dunagan), the tornadic matriarch at the helm of the Weston household, is a prescription-drug-addicted caricature of a spry, elderly woman. Her outlandish movements, outbursts and general tyrannical escapades are juxtaposed with the resigned, snide temperament of Beverly (Dennis Letts), her alcoholic husband.
After Beverly’s disappearance early in the first act (his body will later be discovered at the bottom of a lake), two younger generations of Westons return to their childhood home, accompanied by their former, current and potential significant others, as well as by Violet’s sister and brother-in-law. Over the course of the next three acts, they will traipse around the house, trading the sort of bruising verbal blows that can only be dealt by family.
Having constructed a scenario that is morbid, though somehow bearably so, playwright Tracy Letts brilliantly builds into each of Violet and Beverly’s three adult daughters fragmented yet visible aspects of their mother. The uncovering of family secrets occurs in a household culture of absurdity so overblown that it becomes, in context, acceptable.
Barbara (Amy Morton), the oldest daughter, is halfway through a divorce but presents herself as a key part of a happy, idealized family, composed of her unfaithful husband, Bill (Jeff Perry), and marijuana-smoking, 14-year-old daughter, Jean (Madeleine Martin). The middle sister, Ivy (Sally Murphy), is in love with Little Charles (Ian Barford) a man whom she believes to be her first cousin; while Karen (Mariann Mayberry), the youngest, brings fiancée Steve (Brian Kerwin) who, despite being an established professional in his fifties, can’t keep his hands off of Jean.
The house, replete with outbursts, pill-raids, broken glass and the revelation of horrible, repressed information, also contains some moments of brilliant humor. Balancing the extreme with standard occurrences of miscommunication and misunderstanding, Letts creates a theatrical environment in which he dissects and examines the squirmy, writhing essence of human interaction.
“August: Osage County” works because it is both terrifying and endearing, the issues and questions raised both relevant and (blissfully) someone else’s problem, throwing anyone’s family drama into stark relief.
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