Set in Oklahoma’s Osage Country – a part of the US that epitomises gun-toting, Republican-voting Middle America – Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County premiered in 2007.
It hasn’t aged a day in the intervening 17 years – its portrait of addiction, mental illness, suicide and a tattered American Dream as relevant as ever.
The story unfolds in the home of drunken old poet Beverly Weston (played by John Howard) and his caustic, drug-addled wife Violet (Pamela Rabe). When Beverly commits suicide, the family explodes into a maelstrom of infighting and recrimination.
Dysfunction is writ large and the full extent of Violet’s opioid addiction is laid bare when the family’s three daughters Barbara (Tamsin Carroll), Ivy (Amy Mathews), Karen (Anna Samson) and their respective families come home from various parts of the US for Beverly’s funeral.
The Weston family’s arguments over money, responsibilities and family secrets are stunningly malicious, drawing winces from the audience. At times, they’re also very funny. Rabe, especially, is a source of dark hilarity in her depiction of the vicious matriarch.
Carroll is convincing in her portrayal of the eldest daughter who tries to wean her mother off ‘hillbilly heroin’. She is by turns steely, vulnerable, caring and cruel in her interactions with her frankly appalling mother.
The one steady force seems to be Johnna (Bee Cruse), a Native American girl hired by Beverly before his death to look after the household. But even Johnna’s devotion to her work is tested as Violet’s behaviour becomes increasingly repugnant and the family disintegrates.
In August: Osage County, the disintegration of the Weston family mirrors the disintegration of the US. While Belvoir announced this production in September 2023 (months before Donald Trump clinched the 2024 Republican nomination and over a year before he was re-elected president) its timing is eerily prescient.
It’s an important and topical play – and at three-and-a-half-hours, a very long one. Osage County has been called a director’s play and director Eamon Flack, who is also Belvoir’s artistic director, directs assuredly here.
However, some fine-tuning is required. Some of the actors could project their voices better (they could learn much in this regard from old hands Howard and Rabe).
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The cast’s American accents range from excellent to passable; several actors would benefit from further attention from the production’s vocal/dialect coach Laura Farrell.
But set designer Bob Cousins has crafted a wonderfully evocative Great Plains homestead as the backdrop for the action, while costume designer Ella Butler hits the right note with the actors’ sartorial choices, which convey Americana in an effective but not overdone way.
The play reaches its zenith in Howard’s and Rabe’s performances, who underscore their reputations as Australian theatrical royalty, with their character portrayals alone justifying the price of the ticket.
Belvoir’s final play of the year, August: Osage County is a worthy conclusion to the theatre’s 2024 offerings and serves as a good omen for its eclectic 2025 season.
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
Belvoir Street Theatre
Produced by Belvoir St Theatre and the Black Swan State Theatre Company
Director: Eamon Flack
Assistant Directors: Guy Simon, Margaret Thanos
Set Designer: Bob Cousins
Costume Designer: Ella Butler
Lighting Designer: Morgan Moroney
Composer, Sound Designer: Rachael Dease
Vocal/Dialect Coach: Laura Farrell
Movement and Fight Director, Intimacy Coordinator: Nigel Poulton
Wig Stylist/Supervisor: Lauren Proietti
Assistant Directors: Guy Simon, Margaret Thanos
Stage Manager: Luke McGettigan
Assistant Stage Managers: Rebecca Dilley, Sybilla Wajon
Cast: Tamsin Carroll, Bee Cruse, John Howard, Bert LaBonté, Amy Mathews, Johnny Nasser, Rohan Nichol, Will O’Mahony, Pamela Rabe, Anna Samson, Greg Stone, Helen Thomson, Esther Williams
Tickets: $39-$95
August: Osage County will be performed at Belvoir Street Theatre until 15 December 2024 before touring, with several cast and crew changes, at the State Theatre Centre of Western Australia, from 27 February to 16 March 2025.
