Horror & humor merge in August: Osage County

This has been a peculiarly busy season, characterized so far by the strange and the wonderful, for us in live entertainment. Let’s start with the upcoming battle between the Kapuso and Kapamilya as to who is the better mermaid which should take a while. Meantime, the best of our theatrical performers continue going from stage to teleserye, half-dazed most of the time for lack of sleep, hoping no one will notice.

The recently-aired 12 Years a Slave is one of the best films we have watched and also one of the most brutal. Small wonder it was a big winner at the Oscars. Today, we tackle a stage play from Repertory Philippines, August: Osage County which is no less awarded as well. In 2008, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play.

What characteristics do these two share that have attracted a great many to praise and recommend them? For one thing, they both deal with happenings in the US that many would rather forget. 12 Years a Slave documented the slave trade outlawed only in 1865. August: Osage County sets itself between the 1700 and 1800. At any rate, another peculiarity they share is the polite manner they address people they consider below them in stature while insulting them. A Negro or Nigger is always a “colored person”; an American Indian is a “Native American.” It is like us Pinoys referring to the squatters as “informal settlers”.

Back to August: Osage County, the play written by Tracy Letts was originally shown in 2007 in Chicago before conquering theaters around the world. The opening scene has Beverly Weston (played by Leo Rialp) interviewing Native American Cheyenne Johnna (Angeli Bayani) to be live-in cook and caregiver for his wife Violet Weston (Baby Barredo). Baby is a combative alcoholic with cancer of the mouth, possibly from numerous family secrets she has chosen to keep. Her weak husband was a famous poet with T.S. Eliot as his favorite, but is now an alcoholic, too weak to contend with his wife’s problems. For the first time, he has taken over, a foreshadowing of what is to happen. Beverly soon disappears, leaving a T.S. Eliot book with Johnna and the responsibility of caring for Violet.

Three daughters of the couple arrive when appraised of the situation. They are Barbara (Pinky Amador), strong-willed eldest daughter whose husband Bill (Kenneth Moraleda) has fallen for one of his young students; Ivy (Tami Monsod) dead-set to marry her cousin Little Charles (Richard Cunanan) in New York; and Karen (Liesl Batucan), youngest daughter  of Violet who introduces her fiancé Steve (Hans Eckstein), who sexually molests Jean (Thea Gloria), the 14-year-old daughter of the characters of Pinky and Kenneth.

New York Times reviewer Isherwood has commented that he “saw the play more as an allegory about the decline and fall of America… The Westons are America, a political and cultural experiment that has failed… with time to return the territory back to those who were there before.” Does that mean we, too, should give back our country to the aetas? As Cheyenne Johnna represents American ideals of traditional values of honesty and hard work, and a thirst for one’s own land, so do our aetas.

The play ends with Violet safely in the arms of Johnna, the T.S. Eliot book beside them on the drawer. Osage County had been written after an old poem that had inspired the playwright. That poem appears to be T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men where the final stanza proclaims:

“This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends/ This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper!”

One must not miss the last opportunity to watch this classic re-telling of a story set many centuries ago, with lessons that remain just as vital, or even more important today when values have been distorted by time and influences, and a step back could help tremendously.

We would like to add that it has been quite some time that a stellar group of performers such as them have been brought together. Directing the play is Chris Millado in his first outing with Repertory Philippines. Chris is a respected theater veteran, and current vice president and artistic director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.     

August: Osage County ends its run on Sunday, March 16. For schedules, call 571-6926 and 571-4941. Tickets are available through Ticketworld at 891-9999.

(E-mail your comments to [email protected] or text us at 0917-8991835.)