August: Osage County @ Playhouse Square 4/13/10



“August: Osage County” has been compared to “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and to “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” but that’s just because it concerns feisty family dynamics. Tracy Letts has created a nuanced family portrait within the confines of his own modern, yet romantic sensibility. From the giant doll-house set to the final scene, this touring Broadway show delivered a truly stunning evening of what theatre at its best can be (that means we talked about it all the way home and continued the discussion over a glass of wine--but only one because, well, no one wants to “act out” like the characters in the play, now do they?).

Estelle Parson’s Violet Weston, matriarch of the word-loving Weston family, provides a heart-breaking look at what could happen to the type of strong, independent woman who pioneered the west once the west was won. If you’re from that part of the world (as one character correctly points out, it’s not the “Midwest,” it’s “the [Great] Plains”) you recognize her instantly. (Or, at least I did.) She’s strong, smart, direct--kinda Annie Oakley gone modern. (One has to completely rethink what it must mean to be 82 years old after watching the 82-year old Parsons. Wow.) Even completely numbed by pills, Parson’s Vi manages to be a force to be reckoned with. Both she and her husband Beverly (yes, that’s his name) cope with old age and regret by copious use of drugs (Vi) and alcohol (Bev).

That he quotes T. S. Eliot when he’s under stress and she quotes Emily Dickinson sums up one problem in their marriage. But there are many more and most get pushed under the microscope during the three plus hours of this play. The couple’s three daughters and their romantic interests are complex and common at the same time and the generally excellent supporting cast conveys that idea. Still, it’s the Tony Award-winning writing that proves the most fascinating. Letts can show the dark side without indulging in despair. He’s an author to follow whose play is well worth the time.

Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.

Listening to and learning more about music has been a life-long passion. She knows there’s no better place to do that than the Cleveland area.