AUGUST OSAGE COUNTY. To 21 January.
London.
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY
by Tracy Letts.
Lyttelton THeatre To 21 January 2009.
Tue-Sat 7.15pm Sun 3pm mat 2pm 3, 6, 10, 13, 18, 20, 23, 27, 0, 31 Dec, 3, 8, 10, 15, 17, 20, 21 Jan 2pm.
no performance 21, 24-25, 28 Dec no evening performance 31 Dec, 21 Jan.
Audio-described 16 Jan, 17 Jan 17 2pm.
Captioned 8 Jan 7.15.
Runs 3hr 20min Two intervals.
TICKETS 020 7452 3000.
www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/tickets
Review: Carole Woddis 26 November.
Summer-time where the living ain’t easy.
August: Osage County and the heat is on. A father has gone missing; family members with partners in various stages of disintegration, tended by matriarch and pillpopping - `I am a drug addict’ – Violet (a ferocious Deanna Dunagan: Bette Davis and Joan Crawford rolled into one) assemble to comfort and assuage. Only the air drips with longheld antagonisms and festering secrets.
Theatre is festooned with plays about family reunions. But there are family reunions and then there are family reunions. T S Eliot knew all about them. Might he have recognised anything of his own, coming as he did originally from the US, in Tracy Letts’ Oklahoman scrambling, warring tribe?
To say Letts has produced a comedy of gothic proportions hardly touches it. Imagine a mix of Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard, only twice as deliriously, mordantly funny. It’s as though Letts – who caused quite a stir in London a few years back at the Bush with Killer Joe, another gothic farce set in trailer-trash land - was hyper-ventilating as he wrote it. Just when you think it can’t get any more familiar(ial), it ratchets up another octave. Suicide, addiction, adultery, incest – they’re all in there, stirred to maximum combustible effect.
In the end, it’s not the Aeschylean emotional gore that you remember so much as the way it’s produced. For this is the Steppenwolf company from Chicago whose alumni have included John Malkovich and John Mahoney and whose performances here provides a master-class in ultra-naturalistic ensemble acting that by comparison makes most British companies look like stilted marionettes.
Family values? Well take a look at this behind the all-American star-spangled banner myth, demolished here with pitch perfect satire, just a hint of compassion and remembrance of indigenous peoples before the white man cometh.
In an ensemble of superlatives, Dunagan, Amy Morton as Barbara, Vi’s supercilious, exasperated, senior daughter, and Rondi Reed as Vi’s termagent sister, Mattie Fae are outstanding. But only outstanding insofar as being in a company of equals. Brother, you wouldn’t want to encounter this lot if you were feeling fragile. A stunning national metaphor.
Beverly Weston, the patriarch: Chelcie Ross.
Violet Weston, the matriarch: Deanne Dunagan.
Barbara Fordham, the eldest daughter: Amy Morton.
Bill Fordham, Barbara’s husband: Jeff Perry.
Ivy Weston, the middle daughter: Sally Murphy.
Karen Weston, the youngest daughter: Mariann Mayberry.
Mattie Fae Aiken, Violet’s sister: Rondi Reed.
Charlie Aitken, Mattie Fay’s husband: Paul Vincent O’Connor.
Little Charles, Mattie Fae’s & Charles’s son: Ian Barford.
Johanna Monevata, the housekeeper: Kimberly Guerrero.
Steve Heidebrecht, Karen’s fiancé: Gary Cole.
Sheriff Deon Gilbeau: Troy West.
Director: Anna D Shapiro.
Designer: Todd Rosenthal.
Lighting: Ann G Wrightson.
Sound: Richard Woodbury.
Music: David Singer.
Costume: Ana Kuzmanic.
Fights: Chuck Coyl.
For Steppenwolf
Artistic Director: Martha Lavey
Executive Director: David Hawkanson
Casting: Erica Daniels
Dramaturg: Edward Sobel
Production Stage Manager: Deb Styer
August: Osage County was commissioned by Steppenwolf Theatre Company;
The world premiere was at Steppenwolf Theatre, Chicago on 28 June 2007.
New York premiere at the The Imperial Theatre, 4 Dec 2007.
British premiere: Lyttelton Theatre, 26 Nov 26, 2008.
2008-12-02 01:00:37