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Feb 2010  |  By Dorothy Andries  |  Comments (0)

Parsons a Marvel in "August: Osage County"

Full disclosure: I never wanted to see "August: Osage County." I heard Tracy Letts had written about a family full of drunks and pill-poppers, who were tearing each other to pieces on the stage night after night and I was not interested.

It was produced at Steppenwolf Theatre, which originated in Highland Park. Fine.

When it went to Broadway, it won five Tony Awards, including best director for Anna D. Shapiro, a faculty member at Northwestern University in Evanston. Good.

It won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. I still resisted.

The moment of truth came Wednesday night (Feb. 3) when I walked into the Cadillac Palace Theatre in Chicago to review the touring production of the show now running through Feb. 14.

Academy Award winner Estelle Parsons plays Violet Weston, the family matriarch addicted to prescription drugs. She and her husband have three grown daughters, one still living at home. A crisis brings the family together in what first appears to be a show of solidarity. But that veneer is soon shattered, the gloves come off and fist fights, verbal and real commence.

That's the bare outline of this searing drama. But its power comes from the way the playwright reveals the family's story, piece by random piece, like a jigsaw puzzle from which finally emerges a horrifying picture.

Playbill provides a family tree to help sort out the 13 players who make up this miserable assembly. Thank heaven, because once they all start arriving at the Weston house in the sweltering heat of an Oklahoma August, it takes some time to sort out them out. It is like being at a party where you only know the host couple, and you'd just met them at last week’s PTA meeting.

Parsons is a marvel, addled and babbling one minute, razor sharp and cutting the next. Shannon Cochran plays her eldest daughter Barbara, whose marriage is coming apart and who, brilliantly, before our eyes begins turning into a eerie echo of her mother. Jeff Still plays her estranged husband Bill, and Emily Kinney their pot-smoking 14-year-old daughter.

Middle sister Ivy is played by Angelica Torn. The forty-plus character is still living at home, enduring her mother's merciless criticism. Amy Warren portrays the youngest daughter, Karen, who is hopelessly deluded about her relationships with her sisters, her mother, and her handsome no-good fiance, played by Laurence Lau.

Just to complicate things, Violet's sister Mattie Fae, Libby George with a wicked Southern accent, harbors a terrible secret. Her timid son Little Charlie, with a secret of his own, is played by Steve Key. Paul Vincent O'Connor plays her very decent husband Charlie. His brief address to his wife, asking why she and her family couldn't conduct themselves with courtesy and respect drew applause.

Of course, if everyone had done that we would be watching  "The Dining Room" by A. R. Gurney, not sitting around a dinner table where Parsons rises to recount  her terrible childhood and pours scorn on her children for moaning about theirs.

Caught in this vicious tangle is the newly hired housekeeper Johnna, played by DeLanna Studi. The father of this family, who is only on stage briefly, is Jon DeVries. Marcus Nelson plays the sheriff and why a sheriff is visiting the Weston's is the first shock in a continuing string of disturbing, nearly incredible revelations.

Perhaps the biggest shock, however, is how much we laughed during this drama. We laughed in spite of ourselves, not at the bitter anger and suffering — that wasn't the least bit funny — but at the hilarious way the characters slung their vicious invective, their spot-on timing, their body language, especially Karen, who flitts about as if she is in a midsummer night's dream, not a hot summer nightmare.

The script is brilliant, beginning and ending with words by T.S. Eliot, the final quote which audience members must complete themselves. Here's a clue: read "The Hollow Men."

The show runs three hours with two intermissions and when the lights come on, it is difficult to fathom what had taken place. The power, the intensity, the terrible intimacy and awful aloneness of these characters is unforgettable.

I never wanted to see "August: Osage County," but I'm glad I did.

The show runs through Feb. 14 at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, 151 W. Randolph, Chicago. Call Broadway in Chicago at (800) 775-2000 or visit www.broadwayinchicago.com