BROADWAY SNAP-SHOT
by Russell Bouthiller

Dateline: December 30, 2007

AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY

Some believe that the dysfunctional family is a worn-out, overdone plot device for the modern stage. How many times can we watch a family fall apart? Well, for as many times as we have witnessed siblings, parents and children locked in emotional combat, none have done it with quite such venom and humor as the Weston family in Tracy Letts' new play, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, now at the Imperial Theatre.

Shuttled to Broadway after a stunning debut at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY opens with the family patriarch, Beverly Weston (Dennis Letts, the playwright's father), interviewing a Native American girl, Johnna (Kimberly Guerrero), for a position in his most unorthodox household. "My wife takes pills and I drink," he tells her. "That's the deal we've struck." Still, Johnna takes the job.

Shortly thereafter, Beverly goes missing from the Weston's Oklahoma heartland abode, (the three-story, doll-house cutaway set is stunningly rendered by Todd Rosenthal). His mysterious disappearance prompts family members to the Weston homestead to sustain the drug-addled, domineering widow, Violet (Deanna Dunagen), who is also recovering from mouth cancer.

Of the Weston's three children, only the drab, uninspiring Ivy (Sally Murphy) resides locally. Violet's abrasive sister, Mattie Fay (Rondi Reed), and her acquiescent husband, Charlie (Francis Guinan), are early on the scene to lend support. Eldest daughter Barbara (Amy Morton) arrives from Colorado with her soon-to-be ex-husband Bill (Jeff Perry) and their pot-smoking teen-daughter. Jean (Madeleine Martin).

The father's unexplained absence is soon resolved when his drowned body turns up and the circumstances only grow more puzzling. Violet's youngest daughter, Karen (Mariann Mayberry), has come home from Florida with her latest fiance, Steve (Brian Kerwin), and Mattie Fay'w ne'er-do-well son, Little Charlie (Ian Barford), finally shows up. With the extended family gathered for the post-funeral repast, the embittered widow proceeds to tear into her relations with such vindictiveness, you nearly want to jump on stage and slap the woman silly. That is until Barbara decides to do it herself.

Letts's wonderfully funny and tragic sketch of a family at war with itself is so engaging, you feel guilty not wanting to see it come to an end. Even with its more than three hour length and three-act structure, you could watch this case study of caustic relationships for hours on end.

Director Anna D. Shapiro has put together an ensemble cast that rivals any the Broadway stage has ever seen. That they are all relatively unknown to New York audiences lends each player an invaluable credibility, for in our minds they are not actors treading the boards, but the real-life players of a family's collapse laid out before our very eyes. As audience members, we are like those portrait subjects in the Harry Potter stories who watch the action while confined to their frames on the wall, unable to intervene and, yet, utterly entralled. AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, is nothing short of a completely absorbing and unforgettable Broadway experience.