Home truths come out in bitter-sweet tragi-comedy
8 September 2024By Helen Musa. This article originally appeared in Canberra CityNews on 3 Sept 2024.
Tracy Letts’ Tony and Pulitzer-winning play August: Osage County is one of the great theatrical warhorses of our time.
Playing at the ACT Hub this month, the play is set in regional Oklahoma and boasts an exceptionally large cast for a contemporary play, most of them members of the Weston family summoned by matriarch Violet (Karen Vickery) after their booze-ridden poet father, Beverly, goes missing.
It also has more than the usual number of acts by today’s standards – three – and a plot in which more than the usual number of home-truths come out in what has been billed as a bitter-sweet, black or tragi-comedy.
Essentially a piece about a mid-western white American family, it does include the indigenous housekeeper, Johanna, a kind of witness.
Originally staged at Chicago’s famous Steppenwolf Theatre in 2007, it quickly transferred to Broadway, where it enjoyed an exceptional two-year run.
It’s a favourite for Vickery, who gets some of Letts’ most excoriating lines, and a favourite for veteran Canberra actor David Bennett, who is a real Oklahoman.
I catch up with Louise Bennet (no relation), who is here to play the most dominant of the Weston daughters, Barbara Fordham.
Raised in Canberra, she cut her theatrical teeth starting out with Amadeus, also playing Ophelia for the late Stephen Pike in his production of Hamlet at Theatre 3.
She then auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London to study Shakespeare in 2007, moving to Melbourne on her return, where she works as a freelance advocacy campaigner.
Back in Canberra by special invitation of Free-Rain director Anne Somes, Bennet tells me she was enticed back to the theatre after a visit last year to London and the National Theatre.
“It was so exciting,” she says, “It made me hungry and my friend whose wife is an actress said, ‘you’ve got to come back to the theatre’.”
“I wanted to dip my toes in something nice but small, but then Anne offered me Barbara, which is huge.”
“I had seen Osage County on Broadway in 2007. It’s a magnificent play and the film wasn’t a patch on it… I play the eldest daughter.”
Barbara is a nuanced role, Bennet reports, but she has good support in Bruce Hardie, who’s moved here from Melbourne recently. He plays Barbara’s husband Bill Fordham.
“There is much going on. All along, hidden secrets bubble up and truths are revealed in this enormous play,” she says.
“It’s quite exciting stuff… you get to smash things and there’s a lot going on between daughter, husband, sister, mother, father – it’s pretty exciting.
“Osage County has a big cast with big dialogue. We are all captivated with the beauty of Tracy Letts’ writing.
“Sure. It’s three acts, but the play rips along with twists and turns so that you never get bored.”
August: Osage County, ACTHub, Kingston, September 5-15.