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AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY
Review

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

August 19 2010

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, Steppenwolf at the Sydney Theatre Company’s Sydney Theatre, August 17-September 25, 2010. Photos: Grant Sparkes-Carroll

TRACY LETTS, actor and playwright and author of August: Osage County speaks, in the program interview, of the “shared experience” of theatre; and he’s not just talking about an audience and the players, or the recognition by an audience of characters and situations in the play: he means both. And the sensation of that joyous and special dual engagement is tangible from the middle of the Sydney audience for what is, to date, his biggest hit.

Steppenwolf, the fabled Chicago theatre institution, is unique in the USA and its work in this production tells you why. As STC co-artistic director Cate Blanchett said after the opening night performance, it was a revelation for actors to watch the tight ensemble – and, she might have added, for the audience too. All but one of the company has been performing the play since it began, but that doesn’t account for the seamless integration of well-oiled familiarity with astonishing spontaneity and freshness. That’s the product of a deep well of skill and talent and an uncommon commitment to the common cause.

August: Osage County is set in a dot on the map of Oklahoma; one of those deceptively picturesque-sounding parts of the United States where the river is wide and lazy, where little towns have cute names like Hominy and Wynona and the summers are suicidally sultry. The heat of this particular August is made even more unbearable – in what ought to be the comfortable, rambling three-storey clapboard home of Violet and Beverly Weston – by Violet’s insistence on sealed windows, drawn blinds and no air-conditioning. The play opens with Beverly telling the prospective housekeeper, Johnna, that he drinks and his wife takes drugs; he hands Johnna a volume of TS Eliot’s poems and despite being fairly warned of what she’s getting into, Johnna takes the job. She needs the work, she says. Pretty much with that, Beverly walks out of the house and disappears – for good.

The Westons’ three adult daughters are summoned home to this overheated emotional maelstrom and, what with their own psychic baggage and simmering animosities, it’s not long before the temperature rises even higher. Tracy Letts says he has been influenced by the grand American tradition of cracked family sagas and there are some sly references to classics of the past: Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and even, in its bleak moments, Sam Shepard; there is also a delightful extended scene between the sisters that has more than a whiff of Crimes of the Heart – and it’s a pleasant, fresh-baked cookie aroma, at that. Essentially though, August: Osage County is master – or mistress – of its own destiny. Its rich combination of drama, humour, wit and tragedy is contained within the everyday-ness of small town life in a whole that is riveting to watch and become part of.

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

The production arrived in Sydney with a trunk-full of awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and Tony for best drama; and best actress for Deanna Dunagan (Violet). Amy Morton (eldest daughter, Barbara) was Tony-nominated for best support, while Rondi Reed also picked up a Tony for her portrayal of Violet’s blowsy sister Mattie Fae. The fact is, however, that while some roles are bigger, flashier or the opposite, all the actors inhabit them utterly in a display of ensemble performance that is breathtaking to experience. The play has been in production in various parts of the world since its Broadway debut in 2007; while Steppenwolf has toured the original version to London, Canada and now Sydney. All this raises the threat of hyperbole and expectation to an almost impossible level and its to the credit of the company and the strength of the play that disappointment isn’t an option.

Nevertheless, there were a few mutters on opening night and there has been some disparaging comment elsewhere that the play is more like a soap opera than the classic dramas of the 20th century. But that, surely, is to misunderstand the nature of America now; and also to forget how different Australia is from America – despite the woe-mongers who bang on about how we’re being swamped by US culture. The razor-sharp humour, studied petty cruelty and roiling lifelong resentments that erupt through the play are as American as Southern fried chicken and the apple pie they all enjoy so much during a fateful (and wondrously choreographed family dinner. To judge August: Osage County by our cultural givens, or by the canon of the American last century is to miss the point and do yourself a mischief.

Steppenwolf’s August: Osage County is a wonderful production and a sumptuously entertaining one. You’ll find yourself laughing at the most inopportune moments and shocked or saddened to the core in between times. Two women behind me spent a while discussing in all seriousness how they’d like to live in the Westons’ house (design Todd Rosenthal); while the constantly changing focus throughout its rooms (lighting Ann G Wrightson) and elegant direction by Anna Shapiro makes the final scene, after the passage of close to three hours, seem hardly sufficient or fair. It’s a rare treat and should not be missed.

 

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