The stage setting is a three story cut away house. All the action takes place on various floors of the house, starting with Beverly Weston sitting in his office explaining to the new hired help the eccentricities of the Weston household. Beverly Weston drinks, Violet Weston takes pills.  The play unfolds  as Beverly disappears; the impetus for the return of the Weston girls, with husband, child and fiance and Violet’s sister, husband and grown son.   The  return of the family to the Pawhuska home reveals  a tinderbox of hostility and every dysfunction imaginable.

The acting was superb. The play program has an article on  Estelle Parsons who wonderfully portrays a drugged up, foul mouthed, controlling Violet. Shannon Cochran plays Barb Fordham,  the oldest daugher, going through a failing marriage, accompanied  by an angry daughter and a desire to strangle her mother (which she almost accomplishes in the second act). Ivy Weston (Angelica Torn) is the family doormat, and Karen Weston (Amy Warren) the non-stop talking,  self absorbed, but needy last child.

The play has plenty of comedy,  we couldn’t survive the three hour drama unfolding without it. Some of the most memorable lines are the funniest. Most I can’t repeat here because NewsOk might censor the language, but take my word on it.

I’ve read the play but it’s so much better when you see it performed. But if you’ve missed your chance to go see it, head on out to the bookstore, or library and get yourself a copy. (I think they should have sold copies of the play at the play.) 

Bill and I talked this morning about how much it stays with you. The images, dialogue and characters linger. Oklahoma’s own Tracy Letts has delivered the real thing with this play, and thanks for letting it come to Oklahoma.

 For an opening night review read the Tulsa World.

Tracy Letts in his acknowledgments in the play, August: Osage County, calls him his “late mentor”.  And thanks him for his poem, which Tracy has used for the title of his play.

Fortunately my library has Stark’s book of poetry, Family Album. (sorry, no longer in print)
Publisher: Durant, OK: Running Board Press
34 leaves.

Using sepia toned photographs to introduce the poems, we meet him and his family. I know that all of us from Oklahoma or who have parents raised here, have looked at similar photographs of our family, wondered what they were thinking, how life had changed them and reflected on our own image.  

from Family Rite

‘In my mother’s sewing room      stored
      among old dress patterns      is the pattern
                            of our childhoods
                            in a box
                                        filled with darkness–
       old photos in darkness      getting arcane
                                                                          dangerous
                                   as they crisp and dim.

We mostly leave it closed     the box
               that once held Dad’s Sunday Stetson
      for even images of joy can hurt.
      (Innocence      when recalled      harms
                               careful balances.)
And some of the faces      solemn for the camera
                                    speak of hopes
                                                             and fears
                we’d rather not recall–
                                                                  make dense in us
                               the shadowy children we once were.’

Looking through old pictures is a landmind of feelings for most of us. I know some people who can look and see only the good times; parties, Christmases, new babies, and always smiling faces. But Starks reminds us of dreams unfulfilled,  hard times, missed opportunities and the realism of life’s lessons.

From Two Girls  (The photograph in front of this poem is of two girls, almost women, arms around each other, looking determined into the camera.) 

‘Imagine a Voice      that day
   saying
          You will work and work and work
              wear out your freshness
              in shabby houses      and hot fields
          scream in birthings
              weep alone      and wonder
                           where all this pain came from.
         One will cough       her life away
             at thirty one.
          The other will live long
                  be ground like corn
                       by a world      that whispers
              give      give       give–
                      there’s more yet to bear.

Having listened      these gallant girls
      would still have said
             Yes
             Yes

             So be it.’

I look at the photographs and see the ones of my Grandma, Mom, our old houses and broken down buildings, cars and flowers in the yard,  all surrounded by the nostalgia and melancholy of the past, yet integral to who I am.

Great stuff.

It’s a good play for Thanksgiving, to remind us normal may be different than Mr Rockwell painted us, but it’s what we are.So pass the turkey and dressing, hope the fights stay to a minimum, and Christmas is just around the corner.

It’s also particularly humorous to hear reviewers on You Tube, say “Osage”, it sounds like some kind of sausage. 

Next to keep the family theme going, Billie Letts, Tracy’s mom, has a new book, Made in the U.S.A.

Looking forward to Carolyn Wall’s Sweeping Up Glass.

Linda Hogan has penned a new novel, People of the Whale. You might want to start with her book Mean Spirit. Here’s a taster from Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma.

And for dessert Carolyn Hart’s Ghost at Work, a new series, a new heroine.

Five for dinner, you do have to spend some time with relatives and turkey. Happy HOLIDAY.