Tracy Letts likes it dark. The Chicago-based playwright is best known for plumbing the depths of the human psyche with his comic-gothic thrillers "Bug" and "Killer Joe." With "August: Osage County," now in its world premiere at Steppenwolf Theatre, Letts moves his lens a bit closer to home, to his childhood state of Oklahoma.
The sprawling, ambitious (three generations, 3.5 hours and two intermissions) family epic hits its mark with aplomb. It shares obvious similarities with other great works about extensive clans and their fucked-up dreams, most notably"Long Day's Journey Into Night," but Letts easily manages to make this play his own. It's cruel, emotionally gruesome and uncomfortably funny, but Letts knows better than to employ his talents just for show. Instead, he crafts a living portrait of a Midwestern family in a moment of collapse that’s equally compassionate and heartbreaking.
When the Weston clan's patriarch (played by Letts' real-life father) disappears, three generations of emotional smoke and mirrors must gather under one roof (a hefty, three-story house that resembles a vertical maze crossed with a doll's house). There's alcoholism, drug abuse, incest, pedophilia, adultery and racism, sure; but also avoidance, performance, jealousy, denial and loneliness—the depths of which, on stage, produce their own sort of shock and awe.
The cast of 13 is beautifully orchestrated into a sort of single, tight performance, allowing for theatrical rarities, like large sit-down dinners and extended, physical fight scenes. Deanna Dunagan, as the pill-popping matriarch, is show-stopping in her stamina alone, while Amy Morton, as the oldest daughter who battles both menopause and a cheating husband, shows a range rarely seen on stage. In fact, many of the parts seem form-fitted to this dazzling cast, which reflects highly on director Anna D. Shapiro as well.
Staggering out onto the sidewalk in front of Steppenwolf after a performance, one feels a bit battered, like the last decade of family gatherings have been compressed into one excruciating, heart-wrenching feast (as always, laced with love).
Reviewed by Centerstage!
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