August: Osage County by Tracy Letts.

August: Osage County by Tracy Letts.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company / STC. Sydney Theatre. August 17 to September 25

EVERY so often an extraordinary theatre experience comes along; Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s original production of the Tony and Pulitzer winning August: Osage County ranks high among them.

The awards got it right; Tracy Letts’ penetrating family drama, with its rich, organically interwoven comedy, warrants its contemporary classic status. The writing is rich, yet the voices are raw and human, concise and truthful. The holistic observation is accurate and microscopic. The themes and potential metaphors of wider American society hang dense in the theatrical ether, inviting us to tease them out.

Letts is an actor / writer member of this extraordinary Chicago based theatre company, and this is the original production, developed in that extraordinary creative hothouse. Among the acting ensemble bringing the play to Sydney are actors who have been in on the production since its inception in 2007, and even beyond that to the earliest workshops.

This is a tour-de-force ensemble acting performance of a great American play, by a fine American cast. The performances seem comfortable and secure, yet maintain an air of spontaneity. The cast perform securely within the rich dramatic unity created by Anna D. Shapiro’s inspired direction, Todd Rosenthal’s stunning three level set, Ana Kuzmanic’s character clinging costume designs and Ann G Wrightson’s subtle, engaging lighting design.

All the elements coalesce, in a play and production where everything seems to spring from a rich, single organic core.

August: Osage County adds new meaning to the word dysfunctional, as an extended family gather on the disappearance, and for subsequent funeral, of the patriarch.

Deanna Dunagan’s central performance as the indomitable, pill-popping, destructive matriarch is certainly the lynchpin of the drama, but the roles of her three daughters and sister are all rich, vital, intricately enmeshed roles, stunningly performed.

In a production where the dramatic interest never flags, the tightly dramatized, directed and choreographed chaos of the vitriolic funeral dinner probably rates as the evening’s crowning highlight.

The resonances of the characters, their baggage, their attitudes and their relationships ensure this play hits home decisively, empathically engaging audiences, reminded of people they know, or are related to.

Another bonus - after the distraction of too many local productions American dramas of drifting in and out of accent through (no matter how much I may want work for Australian actors) - the absence of this distraction really heightened my engagement.

Three and a half hours (with two short intervals) seem to fly - a sure testament to great theatre.

Neil Litchfield

Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s August: Osage County, presented by Sydney Theatre Company. Photo: Grant Sparkes-Carroll
 

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