Explosive `August: Osage County' unleashed at San Jose Stage
Powerhouse performances fuel unsettling drama
In the early moments of San Jose Stage's stunning production of “August: Osage County,” the Weston family patriarch gives a little insight to the potential employee he wants to hire. Johnna, the Cheyenne woman who is looking for work as a housekeeper, needs to know what's up if she takes the gig.
“My wife takes pills, and I drink. That's the bargain we've struck.”
If these were the only problems with this gig, things might be salvageable.
The Stage's production of Tracy Letts' 2008 Pulitzer winner is an outright force, a grimy and primal examination of an unnerving collection of mouth-breathing Oklahomans incapable of making any decisions that won't destroy anyone within 5 feet. Each choice is a powder keg of miscalculation, and a gathering in response to a missing patriarch collects all these folks together, with disastrous consequences.
The poet and T.S. Eliot connoisseur Beverly Weston (a nice set of moments by Randall King) hires Johnna (empathetic L. Duarte) to care for the home and his drug-addicted wife Violet (Judith Miller), who is dealing with mouth cancer from a lifetime of cigarettes. Shortly after Johnna is established as the new employee of the family, Beverly disappears while on his boat.
The family rallies around Violet because her husband is in peril, but that doesn't last long due to her abject cruelty. One constant target of her ire is daughter Ivy (a pathos-driven Elena Wright), a spinster in her early 40s who does nothing to make herself attractive to a potential mate, which is only one thing that raises Violet's infinite hackles. Yet if history is a guide, being single in this family might not be the worst thing in the world.
Shortly after the tragedy is established, in walks Ivy's older sister Barbara (Allison F. Rich) along with her unfaithful yet svelte husband, Bill (a sharp Michael Ray Wisely), and distraught daughter Jean (effectively insular Carley Herlihy), a 14-year-old who finds deeper connection to pot and Lon Chaney's “Phantom of the Opera” than with actual humans. Rounding out the siblings are Floridians Karen (humor-filled Tanya Marie) and her smarmy fiancé Steve (an effective yet unsettling Joshua Hollister).
More support swings by in the form of Violet's sister Mattie Fae (a hilarious Marie Shell); her beer- and ballgame-loving husband, Charles (a riotous Tim Kniffin); and their introverted gump of a son Little Charles (Matthew Kropschot, exuding an uncomfortable vibe). This combination of toxic folks, stewarded by Violet's base destruction, guarantees collateral damage to be strewn all over Bill Vujevich's sharp and linear scenic design.
Director Kenneth Kelleher skillfully brings together such a fantastic collection of performances under one wild tent. To that end, the interpretation of Violet by Miller is an absolute storm, a powerhouse turn that challenges her emotional and physical capabilities. As the matriarch of this band of damaged folks, the range of this role is vast. But notice the way she listens with confoundment, explodes with rage and sobs with torture. The role is positively hopeless, living firmly in a drugaddicted stupor, and Miller nails every pathetic aim.
Every bit her equal is Rich, whose performance might devastate even more because Barbara is younger and has to live this agonizing life longer. Though so much visceral rage zips through the room like a laser, it is some of her tender moments that are truly heartbreaking, namely the interactions she has with high school sweetheart Deon (a calming Terrance Smith), a handsome sheriff who has done well for himself despite his own tortured past. Deon is investigating Beverly's disappearance, but what becomes exceedingly clear is that Barbara would give anything for Deon to find her instead.
Despite the soul-crushing circumstances each person is tasked with, Letts' script is terribly funny, giving performers lots of space to create humor that is cackleworthy, a highly sardonic journey that provides a plethora of opportunities for self-examination.
There are no innocent lives among these denizens, only tormented souls that wake up and live another day. And if one quote could succinctly capture why the Westons even bother, it may be this one — “Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed.”
By the end of the proceedings, the only thing we can firmly know about their future is that these folks don't have much of one. There are still steps to climb, but they are steps that lead nowhere. Sitting on them to rest and weep is their only solace. That just may be how this world ends.