This a heart-achingly good production of a modern classic.
Written by Tracy Letts, it was first presented by Steppenwolf in the USA in 2007. I’ve now been fortunate enough to see this play three times in Sydney. This production by Belvoir, directed brilliantly by Eamon Flack, is deeply moving and utterly hilarious.
Set in the near present in Osage County, Oklahoma, it tells the story of a family who gather to deal with the disappearance of a loved one – and to deal with each other. In many ways, Letts is a descendant of Chekhov, presenting a world in which love is real but somehow always misdirected.
This tragi-comedy has become a modern favourite because it provides actors with the chance to really show off their stuff. There are thirteen beautifully rich roles and Flack’s cast grab the opportunities offered and give us something truly special. It’s an ensemble of the highest order.
I’d rather not reduce my response to a list of accolades for individual actors, so here’s the smallest tasting plate from what’s a theatrical feast.
Pamela Rabe is superb as Violet, the matriarch of the family. Her meanness is deliciously funny until pain erodes it to pathos. Tamsin Carroll as eldest daughter Barbara is magnificent; she too perfectly balances humour and heart, and the fearful recognition that she’s becoming her mother is played with a soul-withering awareness that what binds us together is also what keeps us apart. Barbara has her own tensions with her daughter, Jean, played by Esther Williams, who wonderfully captures the precocity and petulance of the intelligent teenager. Barbara’s speech to Jean beginning I don’t care what you do with your life and ending in the most heart-rending way, and then her daughter’s glib response, is a moment of shining insight into the human condition, one of many in this extraordinary play.
In addition to tragi-comedy, August: Osage County has elements of the state-of-the-nation play. Barbara shares her father’s observation that America has always been a whorehouse, but at least it had promise. Now it’s just a shit hole. (These are not direct quotes from the play.) She muses that cataclysm is preferable to dissipation, and is horrified that the nation’s promise may have slipped away without anyone noticing.
These themes are introduced from the get go. In the opening scene, Beverley (John Howard) hires Johnna (Bee Cruse), a Native American, as a housekeeper. Beverley invites her to read any of his books and quotes to her TS Eliot, “Here we go round the prickly pear” (It’s not the only line in the play from The Hollow Men.) Despite the madness around her, Johnna maintains dignity and a concern for others.
State-of-the-nation plays are an odd genre, inviting us to see a small set of individuals as representative of something much, much larger. It suggests a hubris more natural to the critic than the playwright. But I guess it’s just an invitation (though I’m not sure we gain much by accepting it; currently, we have no shortage of armchair sociologists and patio political scientists.)
I’ll admit I found the conclusion of this production a little disappointing. I’m not evaluating any skills; I’m simply responding to creative choices. It seems to me the final moments of the play are an opportunity for something majestic, an intimation of eternal custodianship, a sense of the always was, always will be – despite everything. But a different choice is made, a somewhat smaller, sadder one. The play concludes with a line from Eliot. That line is not “the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time” – though I wonder if it might be made to feel as though it is.
But that’s the joy of returning to established work in theatre; we rediscover a past love and we discover how it is loved differently by others. It’s like the speeches at a wedding; always gloriously familiar, always gloriously fresh.
And this production is glorious, both for those who know the play and for those experiencing it for the first time.
Paul Gilchrist
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
At Belvoir until 15 December
Image by Brett Boardmann
Theatre Red 