August: Osage County by Tracy Letts (2009)

Summary:  The three Weston sisters have returned to the home of their parents in Pawkuska, Oklahoma following the disappearance of their father.  They are joined by various relatives and a recently hired cook/maid/nurse named Johnna as they wait with their drug-addled mother for the phone to ring.  Eventually, Sheriff Heidebrecht visits the family to inform them that Bev's body has been found in the lake, an apparent suicide that will be filed as "drowning."  As the sisters attempt to figure out what to do with their mother (who has mouth cancer and is seriously addicted to painkillers), family secrets old and new are exposed. 

Thoughts:  For the second time in this project, a blurb on the back of the book compares the work to that of Eugene O'Neill.  Jeremy McCarter writes, "August:  Osage County is what O'Neill would be writing in 2007.  Letts has recaptured the nobility of American drama's mid-century heyday while still creating something entirely original."

When I read this play for the first time in May of 2010 after spending a few years lying about having read it, I was both moved and awed by the thirteen characters Letts had created.  Each of these characters is crucial to the transmission of the family narrative, and cases can be made for many of them being the "main" character.  Accordingly, both published critics and friends of mine have called this "the best play of the decade."  If the dysfunctional family is the most celebrated subject in the canon of American drama, this play certainly holds its own in the historical record.  

However, I have now read both this play and Sam Shepard's Buried Child twice and now take issue with McCarter's compliment "something entirely original."  Not only are there overlapping subjects in these plays (which happens all the time in dysfunctional family dramas), there are details and structural issues that contain uncomfortable instances of overlap (what happens in the backyard, the role of the outsider, ghostly ending...)

I still love August:  Osage County and think it is a majorly significant work that excels at doing what many American dramatists have attempted:   a realistic depiction what happens when the adult members of a family are forced back together under emotional circumstances.  However, before making proclamations about grandeur and originality, I think it is important to take a look at the play that won the Pulitzer Prize 29 years before.  

Craig's Wife by George Kelly (1926)

Summary:  Mrs. Craig is fiercely committed to keeping her house “in order.”  As a result, she treats her maids terribly, resents any guests that come to visit and makes strict rules for her husband and (live-in) aunt-in-law. 

Though this is play is fundamentally about Mrs. Craig’s relationship to her husband, there is also a strange murder mystery in the middle of the play which serves to highlight Mrs. Craig’s neuroses and extreme jealousy. 

Thoughts:  Like many of the awarded plays of the 20s, this play features a woman who is steadfast in her beliefs about the role of a woman in marriage.  Interestingly, Mrs. Craig and her husband have only been married for eighteen months.  She repeatedly states to different people that she married so that she would never be poor, and that all a woman has is her home.  True feelings about marriage and property are revealed when her husband counters this thesis with:

Mr. Craig:  Hasn’t she her husband?
Mrs. Craig:  She could lose her husband, couldn’t she?—As many another woman has.
Mr. Craig:  Couldn’t she lose her home too?
Mrs. Craig:  She couldn’t if she knew how to secure it  (Act 2, 362).

Enlightened by his aunt, Mr. Craig attempts to resume control over his household, which manifests in smashing some of his wife’s beloved ornaments on the mantel and smoking in the living room.  After he gets his wife to admit that she has been trying to keep his friends out of the house, Mr. Craig states that he plans to leave the marriage, but will ensure that Mrs. Craig keeps the house.  At the end of the play, the servants have all been fired or have quit, Aunt Austen has left to “travel” and Mrs. Craig’s visiting niece has returned home.  She is left alone in her pristine, but empty house.

At several points throughout the play, it seems that the dramatic action is going to take a different course.  There are hints of multiple other subjects throughout the play (murder mystery, the terminal illness of Mrs. Craig’s sister, a possible lesbian relationship between Aunt Austen and the neighbor with a knack for growing roses, Mr. Craig’s potential adultery) but none of these subjects are fully explored or come to neat conclusions.  Though there are a myriad of things going on around her, Mrs. Craig is most concerned with physically keeping up appearances.

The Shadow Box by Michael Cristofer (1977)

Summary:  Three individuals are separately living at a hospice for the terminally ill.  As each struggles with their impending death, their familial relationships are explored.  The dying individuals stay in their own cottages and never interact with other patients or families.  They are, however, questioned about their feelings by a nondescript "Interviewer."

In cottage one, Joe is joined by his wife Maggie and son Steve.
In cottage two, dying Brian and his partner Mark are joined by his ex-wife Beverly.
In cottage three, Felicity cares for her dying mother Agnes.

Thoughts:  Though the summary is straightforward, the play is actually quite ambiguous about it's given circumstances.  The stage directions do not reveal that it is a hospice, but rather a hospital that contains "cottages."  Early in the play, Joe reminds Maggie that he will not be coming home, and that they need to find a way to tell Steve.  He does not explicitly state that he will die at the hospice, but attempts to convey that he has come to terms with death and that Maggie should attempt to follow suit.  Death is talked about very indirectly; and typically, the relatives are more emotional than the patients in the cottages.

Though the play details the relationships of three individuals, each scene has a very intimate tone and clear objective.

'Night Mother by Marsha Norman (1983)

Summary:  Jessie is planning to commit suicide and tells her mother just hours before she plans to do it.  The play chronicles their subsequent night in one continuous scene.  True character traits are revealed and words left unspoken for decades are finally uttered.

Thoughts:  No play in the Project thus far has made me as uncomfortable as this one.  Perhaps because I was familiar with the story before reading it, I knew that when Jessie promised suicide that this was a promise she would fulfill.

Adding to my discomfort was the fact that, for 18 years, I lived in a house with two women--my mother and grandmother.  They have interactions that mirror Marsha Norman's prologue note, "There is a shorthand to the talk and a sense of routine comfort to the way they relate to each other physically.  Naturally, there are also routine aggravations" (4). 

The play is a fifty-eight page scene with no intermission.  The New York Times blurb on the back of the Dramatists acting edition simply states, "...a shattering evening..."  I agree.  And know that it is not something I ever want to spend an evening witnessing.

Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley (1981)

Summary:  The Magrath sisters have returned to their family home after youngest sister Babe has been arrested for shooting her husband.  They revisit old arguments (and old boyfriends) and seem to argue that, though we age and move apart, the way we interact with our relatives never really changes.

Thoughts:  Another play about a family that fights, but also loves each other very much.  While the catalyst for the reunion (Babe's newly minted murderous tendencies) is certainly flashy, the interactions of the Magrath sisters are fairly banal.  Additionally, we can't hate Babe too much because her husband had been abusing her for years.  However, additional dramatic tension is added by the fact that Babe has been having an affair with a fifteen year-old black boy (and there are pictures!  Scandalous!)  Though the murder and subsequent meetings with the lawyer are certainly important to the advancement of the plot, this play is fundamentally about the relationship between sisters.  It seems obvious from the outset that Babe is not going to spend any time in jail, but worrying about it gives the sisters something to do besides fight with each other.

The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds by Paul Zindel (1971)

Summary:  Beatrice lives at home with her two daughters (Tillie and Ruth), an elderly woman named Nanny (whose family pays for her to be there) and a rabbit (who things cannot end well for).  Beatrice is emotionally abusive to her two daughters, likely drinks too much and frequently makes Tillie stay home from school to help her with Nanny and various chores around the house.  The dramatic action of the play changes when the school calls home to report that Tillie is a finalist in the school science fair.

Thoughts:  In the Introduction, Zindel writes, "I suspect it is autobiographical, because whenever I see a production of it I laugh and cry harder than anyone else in the audience."  This statement creates immediate sympathy for the author because, from start-to-finish, Beatrice is a character who no child should ever be subjected to.  Zindel's body of work includes an overwhelming majority of young adult novels.  This play, like most of those books, contains a strong moral that children are individuals, not just extensions of their parents.  Despite a horrendous upbringing, they can experience joy and ultimately triumph.

Picnic by William Inge (1953)

Summary: Madge and Millie Owens are two sisters of "marrying age" who are preparing for a town picnic. While this is a relatively normal event, the stakes are raised when Hal Carter, a boy with a past, appears and is set up with Millie--the smarter and less attractive of the Owens sisters.  While Millie prepares for her first real date, mutual attraction develops between Madge (practically engaged to Hal's friend Alan) and Hal. This attraction results in a rape (?).  Ultimately, Madge states that she has feelings for him and is leaving her family behind to chase him on a train.

Thoughts: This play seemed a whole lot more banal until I typed, "This attraction results in a rape (?)"  The play was originally produced in 1953, and stereotypical gender roles are evident throughout. Mr. Owens is never seen and Mrs. Owens only infrequently refers to him, always with undertones of "that good for nothing I lusted after back in the day." Additionally, there is a pack of schoolteachers who are relegated to "old maid" status, until one of them essentially bullies a man into marrying her and whisking her away from her humdrum life. Well, come to think of it, this play is an interesting examination of gender, especially in rural landscapes of the 1950s. The entire play takes place on/around the front yards surrounding two porches and the setting and accompanying mentality reminded me of very much of Oklahoma!

"We're not goin' on no God-damn picnic."

A Delicate Balance by Edward Albee (1967)

Summary:  Agnes and Tobias are a married couple living in the comfort of the suburbs, clearly affluent enough to never discuss working outside of the home or any sort of financial strain.  Instead, they spend much of their time finding creative and emotionally destructive ways to fight with each other, often surrounding the topic of Claire—a seemingly permanent houseguest (and the alcoholic younger sister of Agnes).  There is news that their 30(ish) year-old daughter Julia is expected back home, fresh off her fourth failed marriage.  In a dramatic break from the routine, Edna and Harry arrive at the end of Act 1.  They are, apparently, Agnes and Tobias’s closest friends.  More interestingly, they are suddenly terrified of being alone in their house, for reasons unspecified throughout the play.

Thoughts:  So many of the plays I have read thus far have been about the way that couples fight with each other, but there is nothing reminiscent of polite veneer (Dinner with Friends, Rabbit Hole, The Subject was Roses) in this play.  Agnes and Tobias know how to hurt each other, and their fighting is reminiscent of another more famous Albee couple—George and Martha (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)  They fight about Claire, they fight about Julia, they fight about Edna and Harry…they fight, seemingly, because they love to fight and excel at it.

The dialogue in this play is interesting enough to make it remarkable, but the play comes to an absolute stunning halt at the end of Act 1 when Edna exclaims, “WE WERE FRIGHTENED….AND THERE WAS NOTHING” (47).  Tobias, Agnes and Claire attempt to figure out what is going on…and the last line of Act 1, only two pages later is Claire’s response, “Don’t you know yet?  (small chuckle)  You will.”  We never know definitively what this fear is—the hints are towards nuclear war, but no one ever says outright.  Eventually, the play ends with a long monologue by Tobias concerning the nature of friendship, love and responsibility.

Dinner with Friends by Donald Margulies (2000)

Summary:  Karen and Gabe and Tom and Beth are two couples that have each been married for about twelve years.  At a routine dinner, Beth reveals that Tom has left her—sending Karen and Gabe into examinations of their own marriage.  These examinations include a long flashback-scene twelve years prior when they were newlyweds introducing Tom and Beth on a vacation in Martha’s Vineyard.  By the final act, Tom and Beth have both told Karen and Gabe that they are happier now that they are separated and that they have found new partners that make them both feel more alive.  This makes Karen and Gabe question the banality of their marriage, but Gabe ultimately says (to Tom):  "The key to civilization, I think, is fighting the impluse to chuck it all."

Thoughts:  Another play in the collection where not much happens outside of a few interpersonal relationships.  A hyper-realistic portrayal of how people who are very comfortable with each other fight featuring a few different examples:  pointed glances across the room (don’t let the company see!), intense couple’s argumentation where the wronged party demands high status ending in violent (though fantastic!) sex and revelatory fighting between friends who have suppressed their small grievances and annoyances for years.

In a year where the other two nominees were Suzan-Lori Parks and August Wilson, it is perhaps interesting to note that this play is full of the privileged white experience.  Karen and Gabe have just returned from a fantastic vacation to Italy, the two couples have vacationed together multiple times in Martha’s Vineyard and Karen, Gabe and Tom have decidedly white-collar day-jobs while Beth does not work and instead is allowed the financial freedom to pursue painting—which Tom, Gabe and Karen all “secretly” dislike.