Few souls have been spared the sweltering heat of an arduous family reunion. Skirted glances, biting quips, and awkward embraces abound in these casserole-laden territories. But few clans can hold a candle next to the smoldering febricity that infests the Weston household, both on and off the thermostat.
The course upon which Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County has been propelled has become something of contemporary theatrical legend. Commissioned and produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2007, the production became an overnight sell-out success in Chicago before making its much-hailed arrival on Broadway. Gripping its audiences with a familial toxicity that proved all-too-relatable, August swept the 2008 awards season (including a Pulitzer for Letts) and has continued to set its sights onward.
The Weston guild is now making its first Broadway-backed pilgrimage to its birthing place, a long awaited homecoming for its dutiful Chicago viewers. Penned by Letts, a playwright known for such squeamish thrillers as Bug and Killer Joe, August is a densely calibrated, sucker-punch Midwestern drama. Riffing off predecessors such as Sam Shepard and Eugene O’Neill, Letts has reinvigorated the often-exhausted genre of family dysfunction. At once coolly sardonic and stirringly morose, the piece clutches tight as it tethers you along through the Weston family’s apocalyptic demise. And from the look of things Tuesday night, there is still nary an eye to its deafening storm.
Shepherded by the unyielding Estelle Parsons, the current touring cast of August: Osage County exacts a near-perfect positioning for the sweating tragicomedy. Ms. Parsons helms as Violet Weston, the acidic matriarch of the Pawhuska kin. After having lost–or rather misplaced–her husband on a particularly disarrayed summer evening (though certainly not an irregular one), Violet summons her three daughters to return to their childhood homestead. The physical abode, a glaring structure by designer Todd Rosenthal, is itself a haunted foreboding for the destructive path that is to be traversed.
Barbara (Shannon Cochran), the eldest and most gainsaying of the psycho-symptomatic trio, arrives with disaffected husband (Jeff Still) and bedraggled teenage daughter (Emily Kinney) in close tow. Ivy (Angelica Torn), the self-effacing middle child who resides nearby, reluctantly attends to the parent for whom she has long served as a repository for libel. An erupting emotional instability and incestuous relation are promptly found to be the tolls paid for assuming the arraigning role of Violet’s caretaker. In fact, in an ultimately seasoned turn of pessimism, Ivy chalks up all of her relations to “accidental genetics”. Karen (Amy Warren), the youngest and most incognizant of the bunch, arrives with slick fiancé in paw and Dr. Phil quotes at the ready.
Amidst the cataclysmic unveiling of harbored disdain, sexual misconduct, and narcotic addictions spews the locus of the Weston dilemma. Despite having extended invitations to attend her period of seeming abandonment, Violet has neither need nor want for such familial abetment. Slurping down painkillers and spurting ill-tempered ripostes, it is soon discovered that Violet employs her offspring as little more than flesh-filled punching bags. With an uncanny knack for vitriolic cruelty and tentacles at the reach, Violet sets out to single-handedly excoriate what little remains of her daughters’ sanities.
Parsons is revelatory in the role. An actress deftly particular in her craft, Parsons permits her viewers to ascertain the underpinnings of Violet’s despotism. A victim of her own family’s neglect and propensity for battering, Violet clings to a long-seeded survivor’s mentality, armored for whichever curveballs life has yet to send. The exertion to survive ultimately manifests itself in her unbridled need to lacerate those who veer too close.
Shannon Cochran renders a harrowing performance as the stalwart Barbara. Easily slipping between Letts’ most sardonic and morose, Cochran tenders an affecting portrayal at each stage of Barbara’s metamorphosis. Yet the cast as a collective has yet to reach an organic, wholly unalloyed portrayal in these characters’ dramatic propulsions. The ensemble tends to eschew the perverse and dolorous for the comical. Segments of the text that once warranted quiet reflection are now met with uproarious laughter, an audience treat in which the actors have clearly learned to indulge.
Yet one of the most formidable production aspects of August (indeed, there are several) has always been Anna Shapiro’s methodically suited direction. Shapiro invites us to observe the Weston family as if the mere instance of pre-dinner grace is ripe cause for an anthropological examination. There are minimal explorations of the theatrical in Shapiro’s directing. In its place she has allowed for the occurrence of absolute naturalism onstage. You are not provided with a seat at the dinner table, but rather given a sliver of window through which to peer and observe a most excruciating demolition. And judging by the sweating intensity that courses through the veins of those present for the meal, it is a welcomed distance.
Frequently daunting with few intermittent allowances of relief, August: Osage County is a drama both consuming and unapologetic in its bleakness. “You have to admire the purity of the survivor’s instinct,” Beverly Weston muses during the play’s opening sequence. But it is a darkness that is well worth the journey and stay, as well as several return trips.
“August: Osage County” runs through February 14, 2010 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre. For tickets or more information, please visit www.BroadwayInChicago.com.
