The stage is set as a portion of a typical American home, with a fold-out couch, an office with a disheveled bookshelf and paper cluttering the floor and a desk.
Set in Pawhuska in Osage County in Okla., “August: Osage County” takes the audience into the home of the Weston family, which just reunited after the disappearance of one of its members, Beverly Weston. The Weston women have many dark secrets that come to light as the family mourns and remembers Beverly Weston. The play includes a full spectrum of wacky characters, including a pill-popping mother, a pot-smoking granddaughter, an abrasive aunt, kissing cousins and a middle-aged pervert fiance.
Mattie Fae Aiken, the overbearing mother of Little Charles, was portrayed by senior musical theatre major Lauren Friednash and was my favorite character. She put so much effort into her character, making her key to the hilarity of the play. From her messed-up red hair to her outlandish multicolored earrings, she had the audience members rolling in their seats. Her exaggeration of movement really made her character shine as a goofy but complex aunt.
The professional actors upped the caliber of the play. Charlie Aiken, played by Geoff Nelson, a contributing actor to the play, was a voice of reason and comedy in a house of chaos and tension.
The sound on the upstairs stage was not very loud from backstage at first, but then as the play progressed the sound of characters’ voices from the second story bedrooms resounded for all to easily hear.
One hilarious scene in particular included Little Charles, played by senior BFA musical theatre major Adam Schalter, at the dining room table as he tried to put on his suit coat at the demand of Violet. As he went to put it on, the coat sleeve was inside out and created great difficulty for him to slip his arm through. As he struggled with this, a few audience members burst out with raucous laughter.
I guess I am used to seeing fairy tale endings where everyone lives happily ever after and there is closure for everyone’s story, but I was left stunned as the play ended with so many questions left unanswered, so many strings not tied up and so much chaos and pain that it made me think of life. Real life is like this: raw and real and not composed of happy endings, but of broken pieces and empty aloneness.
This play makes you examine your own family and realize that you do not have it as bad as you think you do. It makes you treasure your family and realize that you need to work on strengthening the bonds with your family members. It opens your eyes to the deteriorating state of families while at the same time challenging and awing you. It is gripping, it is sweet, it is appalling and it is hilarious. It is real life in the modern era.
