Ex-Rep director joins August: Osage County cast
Plays seldom have two directors, but Arkansas Repertory Theatregoers can see one director at work and another director onstage when Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County — a dark comedy that takes family dysfunction to new heights of intensity — opens this weekend.
The Rep’s producing artistic director Robert Hupp is directing the play with a cast that includes the Rep’s former director and founder, Cliff Fannin Baker. Baker directed plays there until 1999, when he retired. But his resume as actor is somewhat scanty, he admits.
“I played Macheath in The Threepenny Opera,” Baker says. “It was the Rep’s first play, in 1976.”
Part of the appeal of his second acting role is its length, he says. He portrays a family patriarch whose disappearance brings together a collection of daughters, children, husbands, boyfriends, relatives and others who, to put it mildly, have a thing or two to say about each other.
“I’m only seen for 10 minutes,” Baker says with a laugh. “Then I can go home, have dinner, watch my favorite TV show and hopefully come back and take a bow!”
Hupp has been familiar with the play since seeing it in New York in 2007 or so — twice.
“I really thought this was one of the best American plays I’d ever seen,” he says. “I felt like it was a play the Rep absolutely needed to do, and I wanted to do. We secured the rights several years ago, but we also sat on the play for three or four years, because I really wanted it to be the right time and the right season.
“This, our 39th season, it really became obvious to me that this was the time. The play carries the mantle of the evolution of American plays starting back with Eugene O’Neill. This is darkly comedic drama that doesn’t provide easy answers, but is one of the most profound plays that I have experienced in my career.”
In the show, a family reunites in an old house in Oklahoma in August, when the heat just might deserve some of the credit for contributing to the high level of the characters’ crankiness.
“The house the family grew up in is really the 14th character in the play,” Hupp says.”The play centers on the relationships between parents and children — what destructive things they do in the name of love. There’s a lot of talking in this play, but not a lot of communicating. How we choose to say what we think can be a loaded weapon sometimes and the people in this play use their words as weapons.”
Susanne Markley portrays Violet Weston, wife of Baker’s character, Beverly Weston.
“I’ve been in the play before,” she says. “I understudied and performed the roles of both Violet and Mattie Fae in the Broadway production of the show.”
Natalie Canerday plays Mattie Fae Aiken, Violet’s sister.
“I’m her baby sister,” says Canerday, one of Arkansas best-known stage and movie actresses, whose career at the Rep began in 1985 in The Foreigner (which Hupp notes is one of the most-produced plays at the Rep). “I’m sarcastic, kind of the comedy relief. I browbeat my husband, don’t like my son. I’m not crazy about my family. I love ’em, but I don’t like ’em.”
Marc Carver, back for his third show at the Rep, plays Steve Heidebrecht, the fiance of Karen, the youngest of Violet’s three daughters.
“I’m an outsider, and most people are pretty polite to me,” Carver says. “But my behavior merits some other un-politeness later on.”
The play does contain adult language and content, the Rep cautions.
Hupp says that patrons should not confuse the play with the movie version of the play, which starred Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts: “The film lacks the epic size and scope of the emotions that come to life on the stage. This is a play that needs an audience, because the humor is so precise. It’s the humor of recognition. That, you need to experience communally, with other people. “It’s just wickedly funny.” As for additional August scenarios:
At noon today, the Clinton School of Public Service Distinguished Speaker Series will present Hupp as he hosts members of the cast and creative team for a panel discussion. Call the Clinton School at (501) 683-5239 for information and reservations.
At 6 p.m. June 12, there will be pre-show entertainment by local musician Heather Smith. Tickets are not required.
The June 17 performance will be sign-interpreted by Raphael James of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He will be positioned in front of a new special Sign Interpreter Section that will be set up. Deaf patrons are encouraged to contact the Rep box office to reserve seating.
At 11 p.m. June 20, there will be an “after-party” in Foster’s, the Rep’s on-site bar, with drinks and appearances by cast members. Tickets are not required.