Letts' portrait of family dysfunction 'Osage' as powerful as ever
When Tracy Letts' "August: Osage County" premiered at Steppenwolf Theatre in 2007, I called it a love letter to the women of Steppenwolf.
The actor/playwright tailored his characters - particularly the females - to his fellow ensemble members, who wore them impeccably. Seeing the 2008 Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning tragicomedy again as part of its national tour, I've revised my opinion. This grand, caustically comic portrait of a dysfunctional American family is a love letter to all its actors.
To almost every one of them, Letts provides artfully crafted, emotionally resonant moments, all of which remind us of theater's ability to help us better comprehend ourselves. What's more, this darkly humorous drama about secrets and lies, addiction and infidelity, cruelty and recrimination is also hugely entertaining.
The touring production stars Estelle Parsons in a tour de force performance and is directed by Tony Award winner Anna D. Shapiro, who directed the Steppenwolf premiere. It's a shrewd, briskly paced production that feels shorter than its 31/2-hour running time. And while this production amplifies "August's" dark comedy, it doesn't sacrifice the emotional intensity underscoring it.
The play opens with Beverly Weston (Jon DeVries), an alcoholic poet who never lived up to his youthful promise, hiring Native American Johnna (DeLanna Studi) to care for him and his vitriolic, drug-addicted wife Violet, played by the brilliant, 82-year-old Parsons. Less brittle than the character created by Tony winner Deanna Dunagan, Parsons' Violet remains a relentless, merciless woman whose compliments ring hollow and whose insults cut even deeper for the matter-of-fact manner in which she delivers them.
When Beverly goes missing, the Weston daughters and other relatives converge on the family's Oklahoma farmhouse (Todd Rosenthal's award-winning set that dominated Steppenwolf's stage, feels undersized and out of place in the larger Cadillac Palace).
There's oldest daughter Barbara (a ferocious, transformative Shannon Cochran) whose marriage to Bill (Jeff Still) has imploded following his affair with a woman a few years older than their teenage daughter Jean (the absolutely convincing Emily Kinney), who's more devastated by her parents' split than she lets on. Youngest daughter Karen (Amy Warren), a 40-year-old victim of a string of broken romances, arrives with her fiance Steve (Laurence Lau), a thrice-divorced, arrested adolescent. There to greet them is middle-daughter Ivy (a discerning, heartbreaking performance from standout Angelica Torn), a librarian who has at last decided to fly the family coop.
Joining them is Violet's brassy sister Mattie Fae (Libby George), her long-suffering, unfailingly decent husband Charlie (Paul Vincent O'Connor) and their son Little Charles (the sweet, sympathetic Steve Key) who - like his cousins - endures his mother's condemnation.
Violet dominates the play. We feel her, even when she's not present. And yet, this is ultimately Barbara's survival story.
Seeing "August: Osage County" the first time was a bit overwhelming. It's a sprawling, dense, yet still accessible piece of theater. Seeing it a second time, I gleaned more from it. That's the nature of enduring drama: One always discovers something new. I expect I will be discovering "August: Osage County" for many years to come.
"August: Osage County" Rating: #9733; #9733; #9733; #189;Location: Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph St., Chicago, (800) 775-2000 or broadwayinchicago.com Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday through Feb. 14, also 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14 Running time: About three hours, 30 minutes with intermissions Tickets: $25-$80 Parking: Paid lots adjacent to theater Rating: For adults <div class="infoBox"><h1>More Coverage</h1><div class="infoBoxContent"><div class="infoArea"><h2>Video</h2><ul class="video"><!-- Start of Brightcove Player --><div style="display:none"></div><!--By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and Cfound at http://corp.brightcove.com/legal/terms_publisher.cfm.--><script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script><object id="myExperience65093120001" class="BrightcoveExperience"><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="width" value="300" /><param name="height" value="255" /><param name="playerID" value="18011347001" /><param name="publisherID" value="1659832549"/><param name="isVid" value="true" /><param name="@videoPlayer" value="65093120001" /></object><!-- End of Brightcove Player --></ul></div></div></div>