August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

Reflections on Bimsara Premaratna’s 2024 Production

️️[Warning: I’m neither a theatre critic nor a journalist. Hence, this article might contain various amateur inaccuracies and biases. Please read it with that in mind.]

The Play

August: Osage County is a tragicomedy by US playwright and screenwriter Tracy Letts. It premiered in Chicago in 2007, won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony Award for Best Play in 2008, and was adapted into a film, starring Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and Ewan McGregor, in 2013.

The play is set at the home of Beverly and Violet Weston, in Pawhuska, the seat of Osage County, an hour’s drive from Letts’s birthplace, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Pawhuska is located dead in the center of the United States, where summer temperatures consistently breach 40°C. It is during such a sweltering August that the events of the play unravel.

August explores the intricacies of family dynamics, in the context of the American “Great” Plains and navigates the complexities of human connections and societal expectations.

Specific themes explored include disintegration of the family, prescription drug abuse, the search for identity, and the decline and denunciation of so-called “Traditional American Values”. Secrets and lies are also central to the play, which explores both their destructive and cathartic consequences.

The play is in three acts, with each act delving deeper into the family’s dirty linen and the characters’ psyches.

[I won’t give too many details of the plot, because I don’t want to be a spoiler.]

The Production

Bimsara Premaratna’s 2024 Lionel Wendt production took stage on the 22nd, 24th and 25th of February. There were no intervals between acts, and each performance lasted just over two and a half hours. I reflect on the performance on Saturday the 24th.

Demanding a delicate combination of emotional intensity and a nuanced portrayal of a dysfunctional American family teetering on the brink of collapse, this was no easy play to attempt. Hats off to Bimsara and company for taking the challenge, and pulling it off, in my opinion, utterly successfully.

The set was both eye-catching and appropriate, recreating the claustrophobic and decadent atmosphere of the dilapidated Weston family home. The dominance of red lighting helped highlight both the oppressive heat of the Oklahoma summer, and the simmering tension on stage.

The carefully chosen music and sound effects played a pivotal role in highlighting emotional undercurrents, with subtle shifts hinting changes in mood, foreshadowing often bizarre revelations to come.

The use of space and split-levels on stage allowed for the multi-layered and often parallel narratives to unfold seamlessly, echoing the bedlam of the family’s relationships.

[Props to the backstage crew who made all this possible. I’m sorry I’m unable to acknowledge y’all by name.]

The Mother

Central to the production was Ashini Fernando’s virtuosic portrayal of Violet Weston, the terminally ill and pill-popping matriarch, whose sharp tongue and bitter demeanor served as the catalyst for much of the play’s drama.

Ashini’s performance was both harrowing and empathetic, capturing the complexity of a mother torn between her illness, her addiction, and her complicated attachment to her family.

Her portrayal of Violet’s descents into hallucination, brief returns to lucidity, and bewildering range of emotions, were both theatrically and pathologically meticulous.

The dynamic between Violet and her eldest daughter, Barbara (played by Thanuja Jayawardene), was particularly gripping, with both actresses delivering performances that ranged from severely confrontational to deeply moving.

The Daughters

Thanuja Jayawardene (playing Barbara Weston Fordham) was the epitome of a daughter and big sister in turmoil, torn between her own crumbling life and her responsibilities towards her family. Her confrontations with Ashini (Violet) were electric, filled with a palpable tension that would have resonated with anyone who has navigated the complexities of a difficult mother-daughter relationship.

Younger daughters Ivy and Karen, played by Tasmin Anthonisz and Purnima Pilapitiya respectively, brought their own unique struggles to the fore, adding layers to the narrative with performances that were both nuanced and powerful.

Tasmin’s portrayal of the quiet and dignified Ivy particularly subtle and created a critical and significant counterpoint to some of the louder characters. Her own emotional journey and sacrifices were fundamental to the shape of the play as a whole. In many ways, Tasmin’s character was the nail ‘pon which the crumbling Weston Family precariously hung.

The Rest of the Family

Mattie Fae Aiken, Violet’s sister, was played by Dilini Perera, who adeptly balanced her character’s larger-than-life and boisterous personality with moments of comic vulnerability, revealing the deep-seated insecurities that drove her to belittle her son and clash with Violet.

Amaya Fernando’s portrayal of Barbara’s daughter Jean Fordham, was both challenging and pivotal, given its relevance to the decline of values, and the hypocritical light in which this is seen in both the US and Sri Lanka.

August is a play, where, like the Weston Family, the ladies do most of the talking. That said, I thought the gentleman, particularly Delon Weerasinghe and Shiyan Jayaweera (playing Bill Fordham and Charlie Aiken, the long-suffering husbands of Barbara and Mattie-Fae, respectively) played absorbing supporting roles.

Kudos to the rest of the ensemble: Amesh de Silva (who played the eminently creepy Steve Heidebrecht), Tahsha de Silva (who played Johnna Monevata, the one outsider and only “normal” person in the story), Rehan Amaratunga (“Little” Charles Fordham), Anuk de Silva (Sheriff Deon Gilbeau) and Mohamed Adamaly (Beverly Weston).

The Direction

Bimsara Premaratna’s emphasis on the play’s ample dark humor provided a continuous stream of relief and glee amidst the tension, allowing the audience to laugh even as they were confronted, often horrified with the characters’ pain and dysfunction.

This balance between tragedy and comedy was handled with skill, ensuring that the humor never demeaned the play’s emotional depth.

Something I cherished about this play was its ability to make the audience feel like members of the Weston family. And at times, it was unsettling, even disturbing, to realize that every one of us intimately knew someone like someone on stage, and that perhaps even, that first someone was ourselves.

The ghoulish post-funeral dinner scene that fractured into comic chaos and where long-buried skeletons came out to play, was not only memorable, but also sincerely relatable.

Concluding Thoughts

Overall, I enjoyed August: Osage County tremendously, and ‘twas probably one of my favorite Colombo productions. Should the company do a repeat performance, I would definitely go again.

And I’d frankly recommend y’all to do the same.

“Time wounds all heals.”

“Thank God we can’t tell the future. We’d never get out of bed.”

“We’re all just people, some of us accidentally connected by genetics, a random selection of cells. Nothing more.”

“Listen to me: die after me, all right? I don’t care what else you do, where you go, how you screw up your life, just… survive. Outlive me, please.”

“All women need makeup. Don’t let anybody tell you different. The only woman who was pretty enough to go without makeup was Elizabeth Taylor and she wore a ton.”

“You’re thoughtful, Barbara, but you’re not open. You’re passionate, but you’re hard. You’re a good, decent, funny, wonderful woman, and I love you, but you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Something has been said for sobriety but very little.”

“This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends.” [T.S. Eliot]

“Unfolding intense three hours of complex themes” by Mithahasini Ratnayake (Sunday Times)

“Thoughts on August:Osage County” by Sanjana Hattotuwa