Synopsis The play exposes the dark side of the middle American family. When the Westons unexpectedly reunite after dad disappears, their Oklahoman homestead explodes in a maelstrom of repressed truths and unsettling secrets, all overseen by the pill-popping and scathingly acidic matriarch Violet Running time 3 hours 20 minutes with 2 intervals.
The Chicago Steppenwolf production of Tracy Letts' August: Osage County opened to critics at the NT Lyttelton last night (26 November 2008, previews from 21 November) with most original members of the multiple Tony-award winning production reprising their roles.
August: Osage County exposes the dark side of the middle American family. When the Westons unexpectedly reunite after dad disappears, their Oklahoman homestead explodes in a maelstrom of repressed truths and unsettling secrets, all overseen by the pill-popping and scathingly acidic matriarch Violet (Dunagan).
Original ensemble members accompanying the London transfer are: Deanna Dunagan, Rondi Reed (who both won individual Tonys for their performances on Broadway) Ian Barford, Kimberley Guerrero, Mariann Mayberry, Michael McGuire, Amy Morton, Sally Murphy, Jeff Perry, Molly Ranson and Troy West. They’re joined by fellow Americans and new company members Paul Vincent O’Connor and Chelcie Ross.
August: Osage County is directed by Anna D Shapiro and designed by Todd Rosenthal, both of whom also won Tony Awards for their work on the production. Author Tracy Letts’ other credits include Bug and Killer Joe, both of which were seen at London’s Bush Theatre in the 1990s.
The reaction of the London critics last night echoed that of their New York counterparts, with the majority concluding that August: Osage County more than justified the pre-transfer hype. The ensemble cast received a barrage of plaudits - “one of the greatest acting companies in the world” according to one critic and “superb in even the smallest roles” according to another. Despite minor grumblings from some regarding perceived “clichéd” character construction, the evening was neatly summed up by Whatsonstage.com’s own Michael Coveney as “one of the greatest nights in the theatre I can recall”.
Michael Coveney on Whatsonstage.com (five stars) – “The arrival of Steppenwolf of Chicago on the South Bank is a truly momentous occasion … Tracy Letts’ big and blowsy, Tony-award winning Oklahoma family drama is a sensation: this is simply one of the greatest acting companies in the world and you have to see them … In contrast to The Family Reunion, this show is less about the paw under the door than the fist in the face … The three-and-a-half hour play develops with the epic grandeur of Eugene O’Neill, the raw bitchiness of Edward Albee and as a study of social disintegration masquerading as a family gathering worthy of Alan Ayckbourn at his best. The chief point, though, is that Letts has written for fellow company members he knows well; this is bespoke material, and one of the greatest nights in the theatre I can recall.”
Benedict Nightingale in The Times (four stars) – “For transatlantic acting at its finest go to the National, see the Chicago-based Steppenwolf company, and marvel at performances so robust yet so punctilious they’d have had Stanislavsky dancing round Red Square … One of Letts’ achievements is to bring some compassion to this dynastic determinism. Indeed, he has some sympathy for everyone but the slick brother-in-law-to-be who tries to seduce Barbara’s underage daughter. Another is that he keeps us laughing, though often in an appalled sort of way. At its best, here’s a droll Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But there are signs that Letts aspires to write a state-of-America play … Watching manipulative, mischievous Dunagan, or bruised, angry Morton or brassy Rondi Reed or any of Anna Shapiro’s terrific ensemble, you ruefully ask an obvious question. Could a British cast bring such commitment and conviction to this subversive take on Oklahoma!? Surely not.”
Michael Billington in the Guardian (four stars) – “Exposing the myth of the happy nuclear family has long been a staple of American drama. If Tracy Letts' play, in a magnificent Chicago Steppenwolf production by Anna D Shapiro, arrives in London garlanded with praise, it is for two reasons. Letts brings to the task of demolition not just the wrecker's ball but the joker's mask. Running at three and a half hours, his play also satisfies a palpable hunger for big theatrical experiences … Letts' real strength lies in his understanding of the dynamics of family life; and in this respect he is as close to Ayckbourn as to O'Neill or Albee. He has a devastating eye for the absurdity of empty rituals. And the highlight here is a funeral dinner party that starts with a rambling attempt to say grace, relying on dim memories of Christianity, and ends with fangs bared.”
Nicholas de Jongh in the Evening Standard (three stars) – “Produced by Chicago’s famous Steppenwolf company and decorated with Broadway honours Letts’ play breaks with theatre tradition by interpreting family life as slapstick tragedy, black comedy and steaming hot soap opera all rolled into one … If only Letts’ people, forever in flight from reality, ran less true to clichéd form. These characters take to suffering and rancour with malicious though comic enthusiasm. Beverly’s widow, Violet, her cruel tongue part of a mouth affected by cancer, has become hopelessly addicted to uppers but this does not diminish the force of her wit. … The high-voltage acting, displayed particularly by Amy Morton’s impassioned Barbara, Mariann Mayberry as her silly, self-pitying sister and Rondi Reed, majoring in vulgarity as Violet’s sister, finally lends this torrid vision of the American dream turned living nightmare a memorable strangeness.”
Charles Spencer in the Daily Telegraph (four stars) – “I'm not entirely persuaded that this is the first indisputably great American play of the 21st century, as some have claimed. Though loosely based on events in the life of Letts' own family, it often seems derivatively inspired by the dramas of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee, combined with a dash of top-class American soap opera … Yet why worry whether posterity judges this an enduring state-of-the nation masterpiece or merely an entertaining pastiche of the great American play? What matters now is that August: Osage County is a consistently gripping, moving and often wildly funny melodrama that keeps the audience hooked and enthralled for three and a half hours … By the end of Anna D Shapiro's richly detailed, continually absorbing production, you feel you know all the characters well. The acting is superb in even the smallest roles.”
The arrival of Steppenwolf of Chicago on the South Bank is a truly momentous occasion. Last seen here in 1989 with a knockout production of The Grapes of Wrath led by founder member Gary Sinise, their incendiary presentation of Tracy Letts’ big and blowsy, Tony-award winning Oklahoma family drama is a sensation: this is simply one of the greatest acting companies in the world and you have to see them.
As director Anna D Shapiro explained to Whatsonstage in this month’s magazine, “August” means the end of something, “Osage” is an indigenous people’s, or native American, term for where they live, and “County” stands for the colonial assignment by other people – Germans, Dutch, New Yorkers, whoever – who displaced them. All these strands exist in the layering of the play contained within a large three-storey house near Pawhuska, sixty miles west of Tulsa.
In the opening scene, the family patriarch Beverly (Chelcie Ross), a booze-sodden 1960s relic of a poet, is hiring a Cheyenne housekeeper Johnna (calm and beautiful Kimberly Guerrero) to the self-inflicted strains of T S Eliot. But in contrast to The Family Reunion, this show is less about the paw under the door than the fist in the face. Beverly’s about to check out big time, leaving his pill-popping wife Violet (scrawny, feisty, manipulative, evil, in Deanna Dunagan’s amazing performance) to shuffle and exploit the affections of their three middle-aged daughters.
The eldest, Barbara (the astonishing Amy Morton, a sort of wounded powerhouse amalgam of Penelope Wilton and Vanessa Redgrave) is a college librarian in Boulder, Colorado, where her teacher husband Bill (Steppenwolf founder member Jeff Perry) is having an affair with a student; their daughter Jean (Molly Ranson) is a pubescent (big boobs) pot-smoking wise child who befriends the isolated Johnna.
Second daughter Ivy (Sally Murphy) is a stay-at-home victim with an incestuous crush on her first cousin Charlie (Ian Barford) whose mother, Vi’s sister, is given the slam dunk steamroller works by the magnificent red-headed Rondi Reed. And third daughter Karen (Mariann Mayberry) breezes flakily in from Florida with her repellent fiancé, thrice-married Steve (Gary Cole) in tow.
The three-and-a-half hour play develops with the epic grandeur of Eugene O’Neill, the raw bitchiness of Edward Albee and as a study of social disintegration masquerading as a family gathering worthy of Alan Ayckbourn at his best. The chief point, though, is that Letts has written for fellow company members he knows well; this is bespoke material, and one of the greatest nights in the theatre I can recall.
Enjoyed but confused - what was the significance of Vi knowing that Beverley had checked into a hotel before he was discovered (dead)? - William
20 Jan 09
The opportunity to see the legendary Steppenwolf company turned the Lyttelton stalls into something of an Equity convention, which is hardly surprising as they provide a masterclass in ensemble acting. August:Osage County is a huge play in the American tradition of Eugene O'Neill and Tennessee Williams, plus a corruscating dinner scene which is reminiscent of Ayckbourn. Tracy Letts presents an extraordinary picture of the hideously dysfunctional Weston family, brilliantly directed on an amazing set. At the end of three and a half hours I felt hugely rewarded but emotionally exhausted, but this incredible company had to put themselves through the wringer again in less than two hours. - David Baxter
15 Jan 09
Superb. - C
10 Jan 09
How on earth can anyone call this play banal? Ok, I'll accept taht this is a play that people will either love or hate, I felt that it was at times over long, but if you enjoy watching a serious play with great acting then you have probably already booked to see this play.
- CAA
05 Jan 09
save your money, a very banal play - iain mcleish
04 Jan 09
Sam Shepherd and David Mamet have both produced modern American plays about dysfunctional families, but both in a minimalist way rather than with the dramatic sweep of Tennessee Williams or Eugene O'Neill like this. It's humour is very dark and at times it veres too far into melodramatic implausibility, but the terrific ensemble relish such meaty roles and the set and staging make terific use of the Lyttleton stage. Mr Letts only other work produced in the UK (as far as I'm aware) was the excellent (edgier but smaller scale) Killer Joe. It's good to see him given the resources to produce something bigger and it's good to have another import to fill the (hopefully short-lived) lean dramatic spell at the NT. Where are the British playwrights writing on this scale? - Gareth James
31 Dec 08
Oh dear,another over hyped show, overhyped, over written and over here!
It may have been moving (or something) to have Letts's dying father play the first scene in the U.S. but boy is it badly written, and then it seems like we get a succession of star turns, audition pieces or improvisations, delivered in wildly varying styles and ability. The direction was all over the place, as were the characters who walked through walls when excited, and the set itself was a disaster, masking much of the action. It would be a lot more interesting to see a radically cut down version in a studio theatre and then the artistry of the more subtle playing might shine through. The high point of the evening for me was watching the fabulous underplaying from Paul Vincent O'Connor as Charlie, watching TV. - joesmith
22 Dec 08
It is interesting to read the enthusiastic comments here and compare them to the feedback on the NT's own website. I walked at the first intermission on Broadway, but was determined to sit it out here since the entire company had taken the trouble to come over with the play and it was the Tony winner afterall, it was the least I could do! I shouldn't have bothered. It is overhyped, overacted and ...! Broadway is generally on the losing side compared to London when it comes to straight plays and I guess that is the reason why they went mad for it there. I, for the life of me, did not see a Tony winning performance from Deanna Dunagan as the drug addicted matriach or a Tony winner in Tracy Letts play. Sure it had its moments, but it didn't add up to a particularly well crafted drama. The staging didn't help either causing what must be one of the play's major set pieces, the post funeral meal, to be performed on one side of the vast Lyttelton stage, with half of the actors present crowded around the dining table with their backs to the audience. I was in the centre of the third row of the stalls and had difficulty hearing what was being said. The final moments of the play has Ms Dunagan stumbling around the stage before climbing a seemingly endless staircase to an attic room where she curls up, foetal like, onto the lap of her carer seemed to me to border on the ludicrous. The somewhat less than enthusiastic reception they recieved the night I went must have been a far cry from the standing ovations they would have got every night on Broadway. I hope they don't take it personally, it's the play and the direction that's at fault not them. - rds
21 Dec 08
As the safety curtain opened, it was as if a picture book setting of a full size dolls house appeared before the audience, belying what was about to unfold.
The relentless force of the charge towards that funeral dinner when the cracks finally break and all hell breaks loose leading to the ferocity of Barbara yelling "I'm Running things now" comprises a fine ensemble performance. Particular praise must go to Deena Dunagan and Amy Morton.
All the secrets that unravel destroy, it seems, all that is left of this hugely dysfunctional family.
I am left thinking of Long Days Journey Into Night, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Homecoming and other plays which lay bare the fragility and simply awful side of family life. All of them classics and I am sure this play too will become a classic along side them.
Family life is often anything but happy and harmonious and this play shines a light on aspects of a life that many of us will identify with to a greater or lesser extent; the vicious and destructive side of family life.
This talented Steppenwolf company seems well suited to the National Theatre, both original and innovative. Let's hope for some collaborations in the future.
An uncomfortable but hugely rewarding theatre experience all the same and often incredibly funny.
This is the best of American theatre at the best of British theatres.
- Paul Wallis
20 Dec 08
After the opening scene which I thought difficult to hear upstairs the play took off. Three hours flew by. O.K. perhaps some of it could have been edited but what great performances.Probably it would have worked better in the Olivier and less lines would have been lost. - Stuart
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