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August: Osage County
By Tracy Letts
Directed by Anna D. Shapiro
At Steppenwolf Theatre
1650 N. Halsted
Chicago, IL
Call 312-335-1650, tickets $20 - $65
Tuesdays thru Sundays at 7:30 pm
Saturday & Sunday matinees at 3 pm
Wednesday matinees at 2 pm August 8,15 & 22
Running time is 3 hours, 25 minutes with 2 intermissions
Through August 26, 2007
“August: Osage County is a play that not many theaters would undertake: a new play with 13 characters, a play rigorous in its thought, vigorous in its language, a play that delves deeply into our human challenges and heartbreaks, and a play that brings to vivid life the complex tumult of the humor, wit and sorrow of our most intimate connections.”
---Martha Lavey, Steppenwolf Theatre’s Artistic Director
"This is not the Midwest. Michigan is the Midwest, God knows why. This is the Plains: a state of mind, right, some spiritual affliction, like the blues?”
–Barbara Weston from August: Osage County
August: Osage County is Tracy Letts’ masterpiece epic Midwestern family drama
Not since their production of The Royal Family, Glengarry, Glen Ross and The Time of Your Life has Steppenwolf Theatre produced a finer work than August: Osage County! One of the many remarkable achievements from this engrossing and powerful look at a Midwestern family in crisis is that Tracy Letts is the playwright. Know for his wacky and weird plays such as Killer Joe and Bug, Tracy Letts has advanced into a mature playwright capable of epic storytelling and the creation of believably vulnerable characters. August: Osage Country has hints of O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night with the sharp dialogue style of Edward Albee and the insights into family dynamics reminiscent of Arthur Miller. Letts’ drama is a successful “must see” new work now in its world premiere. This show is a treasure that will find its way to Broadway and beyond. It is one of the best new plays in years.
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Featuring a stellar cast of 13, August: Osage County is the story of the Oklahoma Weston family featuring a boozer patriarch, Beverly (Dennis Letts, Tracy’s father), his drug addicted wife, Violet (Deanna Dunagan), an enabling aunt, Mattie Fae (Rondi Reed), three grown daughters---Barbara (Amy Morton), Ivy (Sally Murphy) and Karen (Mariann Mayberry) caught in an exhausting family dynamic fueled by Beverly’s abrupt disappearance just after he hires an American Indian housekeeper, Johnna (Kimberly Guerrero) to run the household.
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As the family reunites to deal with the crises, old wounds are opened and the women battle for understanding as personal guilt and life choices emerge as the fabric of being a Weston under the sorrowful matriarchal influence of Violet the super-strong yet drug addicted head of the Westons. Deanna Dugagan is marvelous as the mean, sharp-mouthed mother. Amy Morton emerges as the new ‘in-charge’ daughter in a masterful performance as the oldest daughter too much like her mother for both to handle. The men in the Weston family are a collection of weak, dotting an accommodating men overshadowed by their women. Jeff Perry, Rick Snyder and Francis Guinan offer fine work here.
Todd Rosenthal’s tri-level cut away house set with covered windows, books and old dusty furniture aptly depicts an old rural farmhouse and the isolation of Beverly and Violet. This epic work is a three hour plus total emersion into the Weston families struggles to deal with forgetting past problems and painful memories. This complex and truthful epic has biting dialogue, with sharp retorts, vicious attacks as well as poignant and compassionate moments. The problems, contradictions and paradoxes of family dynamics are wonderfully depicted here. Letts covers much ground and he has given all the major characters full dimensional development. We care about these people and we are shocked at the climatic encounters between Violet and Barbara in act three.
You’d be hard pressed to witness a finer, more complete drama with realistic and humanly flawed characters than August: Osage County. This drama reminds us that it is almost impossible to escape from one’s family, especially from a Midwest family. Don’t miss this marvelous epic. August: Osage County is as good as theatre gets.
Highly Recommended
Tom Williams
Tom99@chicagocritic.com for comments
Date Reviewed: July 7, 2007
Jeff Recommended
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