FM and I had the great pleasure of attending (courtesy of the Australian Book Review – ABR) the marvellous Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, Directed by Anna D Shapiro last Friday night.

Steppenwolf is a star-studded top-shelf outfit including luminaries like John Malkovich (but not in this production), hailing from Chicago.  Audience members fond of US television (especially those very familiar with the West Wing or the recent Brady Bunch movie – ok you parents) will recognise Gary Cole as the sleazy Steve Heidebrecht, and Chelcie Ross ( Gray’s Anatomy, My Name is Earl, Cold Case) as Beverley Weston.

The August: Osage County season at Sydney Theatre Company (until 25th of September) is a tour de force.  A rivetting, scathing comedy surrounding the Weston Family of August: Osage County.

Not wanting in any way to dilute your pleasure, I’ll avoid giving away virtually any of the plot, but it’s fair to say that this is the quintessential dysfunctional extended family with a dark, dark secret and the matriarch from hell.  Not quite so successful in avoiding the common comparisons with “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?”, this family has the quintessential matriarch from hell.

The play opens with a long, dry, wry prologue by the family patriarch, Beverley Weston and the extended family unravels badly from then on in.

So many memorable lines….. for example, Eldest daughter Barbara Fordham (Amy Morton) describes her philandering lecturer husband Bill’s (Jeff Perry) illicit  affair with one of his students as “Porking Pippy Longstocking”.

Set in the dog days of summer in the deep south, it’s hot, humid and considering the opprobrium is so thick it can be cut with a knife, the play is surprisingly breezy as the dialogue and action throw us around amidst a large scale cutaway doll’s house set.

In the past, it’s true I have delighted in sticking the knife into STC when it dished up turgid, ponderous, flat and uninspired Shakespearean pap.  But the visiting Steppenwolf Company production was brilliant.  It has two short intervals and runs for over three hours – but it seems to pass in a flash.  Most of the audience alternated between shock at the cruelty the characters dumped on each other, laughing at the buffoonery and sometimes nervously smiling at the embarrassing intimacy of a microscopic look into this American family’s life.  But those of us not so easily offended just laughed and laughed.  It was great !

While the most obvious context for the play is that it centres on a matriarch in deep decline, with her three daughters’ families and a her sister’s family, Osage is also a metaphor for America.  Threaded through the play are references to TS Eliot’s the Wasteland.

While we were at the theatre, we took the precaution of recording an old TV favourite – the Collectors on ABC1 – and let the recording run on.  When we watched the recording instead of the grim election coverage last night, it ran on to another recording – of a speech given recently in Australia by the (British) Harvard professor of economic history – Neill Ferguson on the Decline of the American Empire – how wonderfully apt. (Chase this speech up on iView if it’s available… it’s a beauty)

And …. if you can, catch the August: Osage County, we heartily recommend that you do.

Our thanks to ABR for the opportunity !