August: Osage County Read online

  Table of Contents

  Epigraph

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  PRODUCTION HISTORY

  CHARACTERS

  SETTING

  PROLOGUE

  ACT ONE

  SCENE 1

  SCENE 2

  SCENE 3

  SCENE 4

  ACT TWO

  ACT THREE

  SCENE 1

  SCENE 2

  SCENE 3

  SCENE 4

  SCENE 5

  Copyright Page

  “I’d bet the farm that no family has ever been as unhappy in as many ways—and to such sensationally entertaining effect—as the Westons of August: Osage County, a fraught, densely plotted saga of an Oklahoma clan in a state of near-apocalyptic meltdown. Fiercely funny and bitingly sad, this turbo-charged tragicomedy—which spans three acts and more than three blissful hours—doesn’t just jump-start the fall theater season, August throws it instantaneously into high gear.”

  —CHARLES ISHERWOOD, New York Times

  “The best new play to emerge from Chicago in at least a generation.”

  —CHRIS JONES, Chicago Tribune

  “The new Broadway season’s first must-see offering. This is a play that will leave us laughing and wondering, shuddering and smiling, long after the house lights come back on.”

  —ROB KENDT, Newsday

  “August is Letts’s vision of the American family writ large—geographically scattered yet incestuously close, and destined to move through the world all alone.”

  —HEDY WEISS, Chicago Sun-Times

  “In Tracy Letts’s ferociously entertaining play, the American dysfunctional family drama comes roaring into the twenty-first century with eyes blazing, nostrils flaring and fangs bared, laced with corrosive humor so darkly delicious and ghastly that you’re squirming in your seat even as you’re doubled-over laughing. A massive meditation on the cruel realities that often belie standard expectations of conjugal and family accord—not to mention on the decline of American integrity itself.”

  —DAVID ROONEY, Variety

  “August will cement Letts’s place in theatrical history. He has written a Great American Play. How many of those will we get the chance to discover in our lifetime?”

  —MELISSA ROSE BERNARDO, Entertainment Weekly

  “Packed with unforgettable characters and dozens of quotable lines, August: Osage County is a tensely satisfying comedy, interspersed with remarkable evocations on the cruelties and (occasional) kindnesses of family life. It is as harrowing a new work as Broadway has offered in years and the funniest in even longer.”

  —ERIC GRODE, New York Sun

  “I don’t care if August: Osage County is three-and-a-half hours long. I wanted more.”

  —HOWARD SHAPIRO, Philadelphia Inquirer

  “Enormously entertaining . . . a good scabrous play.”

  —CLIVE BARNES, New York Post

  “Tracy Letts, in his Broadway debut, creates a hugely ambitious, highly combustible saga that will leave you reeling. August: Osage County may make you think twice about going home for the holidays, but for Broadway theatergoers, it’s a great big exhilarating gift.”

  —JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ, Daily News

  For Dad

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Anna Shapiro.

  Martha Lavey, David Hawkanson, Erica Daniels, Steppenwolf Theatre Company.

  Jeffrey Richards, Jean Doumanian, Steve Traxler, Jerry Frankel.

  Ian Barford, Deanna Dunagan, Kimberly Guerrero, Francis Guinan, Fawn Johnstin, Brian Kerwin, Dennis Letts, Madeleine Martin, Mariann Mayberry, Amy Morton, Sally Murphy, Jeff Perry, Rondi Reed, Rick Snyder, Troy West.

  Ed Sobel, Todd Rosenthal, Annie Wrightson, Ana Kuzmanic, Richard Woodbury, David Singer, Deb Styer, Michelle Medvin.

  Brant Russell, Mike Nussbaum, Sadieh Rifai, Penny Slusher, John Judd, Jeff Still, Katie Crawford, Lauren Katz, David Pasquesi, Mike Shannon, David Cromer, Henry Wishcamper.

  Howard Starks, my late mentor. For the poem “August: Osage County.”

  Nicole Wiesner, all my love.

  Shawn and Shari, Dana and Deborah.

  Billie Letts, Barbara Santee, Dewey Dougless. Your fortitude is a marvel.

  Bill and Virginia Gipson. With love and letting go.

  PRODUCTION HISTORY

  August: Osage County premiered in June 2007 at Steppenwolf Theatre Company (Martha Lavey, Artistic Director; David Hawkanson, Executive Director) in Chicago. The director was Anna D. Shapiro; the scenic designer was Todd Rosenthal, the costume designer was Ana Kuzmanic, the lighting designer was Ann G. Wrightson, the sound designer was Richard Woodbury; original music was composed by David Singer, fight choreography was by Chuck Coyl, casting was by Erica Daniels; the dramaturg was Edward Sobel, the dialect coach was Cecilie O’Reilly, the stage manager was Deb Styer and the assistant stage manager was Michelle Medvin. The cast was as follows:

  BEVERLY WESTON Dennis Letts

  VIOLET WESTON Deanna Dunagan

  BARBARA FORDHAM Amy Morton

  BILL FORDHAM Jeff Perry

  JEAN FORDHAM Fawn Johnstin

  IVY WESTON Sally Murphy

  KAREN WESTON Mariann Mayberry

  MATTIE FAE AIKEN Rondi Reed

  CHARLIE AIKEN Francis Guinan

  LITTLE CHARLES AIKEN Ian Barford

  JOHNNA MONEVATA Kimberly Guerrero

  STEVE HEIDEBRECHT Rick Snyder

  SHERIFF DEON GILBEAU Troy West

  August: Osage County opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre on December 4, 2007. It was produced by Jeffrey Richards, Jean Doumanian, Steve Traxler, Jerry Frankel, Ostar Productions, Jennifer Manocherian, The Weinstein Company, Debra Black, Daryl Roth, Ronald Frankel, Marc Frankel, Barbara Freitag and Phil Mickelson, and Rick Steiner and Staton Bell Group. The cast and artistic team were the same, except for the following changes: additional casting was provided by Stuart Howard, Amy Schecter and Paul Hardt; and casting changes were:

  JEAN FORDHAM Madeleine Martin

  STEVE HEIDEBRECHT Brian Kerwin

  CHARACTERS

  THE WESTON FAMILY:

  BEVERLY WESTON, sixty-nine years old

  VIOLET WESTON, Bev’s wife, sixty-five years old

  BARBARA FORDHAM, Bev and Violet’s daughter, forty-six years old

  BILL FORDHAM, her husband, forty-nine years old

  JEAN FORDHAM, their daughter, fourteen years old

  IVY WESTON, Bev and Violet’s daughter, forty-four years old

  KAREN WESTON, Bev and Violet’s daughter, forty years old

  MATTIE FAY AIKEN, Violet’s sister, fifty-seven years old

  CHARLIE AIKEN, Mattie Fay’s husband, sixty years old

  LITTLE CHARLES AIKEN, their son, thirty-seven years old

  OTHERS:

  JOHNNA MONEVATA, housekeeper, twenty-six years old

  STEVE HEIDEBRECHT, Karen’s fiancé, fifty years old

  SHERIFF DEON GILBEAU, forty-seven years old

  SETTING

  August 2007.

  A large country home outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma, sixty miles northwest of Tulsa.

  The child comes home and the parent puts the hooks in him. The old man, or the woman, as the case may be, hasn’t got anything to say to the child. All he wants is to have that child sit in a chair for a couple of hours and then go off to bed under the same roof. It’s not love. I am not saying that there is not such a thing as love. I am merely pointing to something which is different from love but which sometimes goes by the name of love. It may well be that without this thing which I am talking about there would not be any love. But this thing in itself is not love. It is just something in the blood. It is a kind of blood greed,
and it is the fate of a man. It is the thing which man has which distinguishes him from the happy brute creation. When you get born your father and mother lost something out of themselves, and they are going to bust a hame trying to get it back, and you are it. They know they can’t get it all back but they will get as big a chunk out of you as they can. And the good old family reunion, with picnic dinner under the maples, is very much like diving into the octopus tank at the aquarium.

  —ROBERT PENN WARREN, All the King’s Men

  PROLOGUE

  A rambling country house outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma, sixty miles northwest of Tulsa. More than a century old, the house was probably built by a clan of successful Irish homesteaders. Additions, renovations and repairs have essentially modernized the house until 1972 or so, when all structural care ceased.

  The First Floor:

  The three main playing areas are separated by entryways. Stage-right, the dining room. The Mission-style table seats eight; the matching sideboard holds the fine china. A tatty crystal-tiered chandelier hangs over the table and casts a gloomy yellow light. An archway upstage leads to a sitting room. A rotary-dial telephone rests on a small side table, beside an upholstered chair. Further upstage, a doorway leads to a hallway, off.

  Downstage-center, the living room. Hide-a-bed, TV, hi-fi turntable, Wurlitzer electric piano.

  Left, the study. A medium-sized desk is piled with books, legal pads, manila folders, notepaper. An archway upstage leads to the house’s front door, landing, and a stairway to the second floor. Further upstage, a doorway opens onto a partial view of the kitchen.

  Far left, the front porch, strewn with dead grass and a few rolled-up small-town newspapers.

  The Second Floor:

  The stairway arrives at a landing (above the sitting room on the first floor). A cushioned window seat, a hallway leading to the bedrooms, off, and another stairway leading to . . .

  The Attic:

  A single chamber, center, with peaked roof and slanted walls, inexpensively modeled into a bedroom.

  The house is filled with books.

  All the windows in the house have been covered with cheap plastic shades. Black duct tape seals the edge of the shades, effecting a complete absence of outside light.

  BEVERLY: “Life is very long . . .”

  T. S. Eliot. I mean . . . he’s given credit for it because he bothered to write it down. He’s not the first person to say it . . . certainly not the first person to think it. Feel it. But he wrote the words on a sheet of paper and signed it and the four-eyed prick was a genius . . . so if you say it, you have to say his name after it.

  “Life is very long”: T. S. Eliot.

  Absolutely goddamn right. Especially in his case, since he lived to be seventy-six or something, a very long life, especially in those days. And he was only in his thirties when he wrote it so he must’ve had some inside dope.

  Give the devil his due. Very few poets could’ve made it through his . . . his trial and come out on the other side, brilliantined and double-breasted and Anglican. Not hard to imagine, faced with Eliot’s first wife, lovely Viv, how Hart Crane or John Berryman might’ve reacted, just foot-raced to the nearest bridge, Olympian Suicidalists. Not Eliot: following sufficient years of ecclesiastical guilt, plop her in the nearest asylum and get on with the day. God a-mighty. You have to admire the purity of the survivor’s instinct.

  Berryman, the old goat: “The world is gradually becoming a place where I do not care to be anymore.” I don’t know what it says about me that I have a greater affinity with the damaged. Probably nothing good. I admire the hell out of Eliot the poet, but the person? I can’t identify.

  VIOLET (Offstage): . . . son-of-a-bitch . . .

  BEVERLY: Violet. My wife. She takes pills, sometimes a great many. And they affect . . . among other things, her equilibrium. Fortunately, the pills she takes eliminate her need for equilibrium. So she falls when she rambles . . . but she doesn’t ramble much.

  My wife takes pills and I drink. That’s the bargain we’ve struck . . . one of the bargains, just one paragraph of our marriage contract . . . cruel covenant. She takes pills and I drink. I don’t drink because she takes pills. As to whether she takes pills because I drink . . . I learned long ago not to speak for my wife. The reasons why we partake are anymore inconsequential. The facts are: my wife takes pills and I drink. And these facts have over time made burdensome the maintenance of traditional American routine: paying of bills, purchase of goods, cleaning of clothes or carpets or crappers. Rather than once more assume the mantle of guilt . . . vow abstinence with my fingers crossed in the queasy hope of righting our ship, I’ve chosen to turn my life over to a Higher Power . . . (Hoists his glass) . . . and join the ranks of the Hiring Class.

  It’s not a decision with which I’m entirely comfortable. I know how to launder my dirty undies . . . done it all my life, me or my wife, but I’m finding it’s getting in the way of my drinking. “Something has been said for sobriety but very little.” (Berryman again.) And now you are here.

  The place isn’t in such bad shape, not yet. I’ve done all right. I’ve managed. And just last night, I burned an awful lot of . . . debris . . .

  Y’know . . . a simple utility bill can mean so much to a living person. Once they’ve passed, though . . . after they’ve passed, the words and numbers just seem like . . . other-worldly symbols. It’s only paper. Worse. Worse than blank paper.

  (Johnna wipes sweat from her brow. Beverly takes a folded handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to her.)

  This is clean.

  JOHNNA (Wiping her forehead): Thank you.

  BEVERLY: I apologize for the temperature in here. My wife is cold-blooded and not just in the metaphorical sense. She does not believe in air-conditioning . . . as if it is a thing to be disbelieved.

  JOHNNA: My daddy was the same way. I’m used to it.

  BEVERLY: I knew Mr. Youngbird, you know.

  JOHNNA: You knew Daddy?

  BEVERLY: Small town. Bought many a watermelon from his fruit stand. Some summers he sold fireworks too, right?

  JOHNNA: Yes, sir.

  BEVERLY: I bought roman candles for my children. He did pass, didn’t he?

  JOHNNA: Yes, sir.

  BEVERLY: May I ask how?

  JOHNNA: He had a heart attack. Fell into a flatbed truck full of wine grapes.

  BEVERLY: Wine grapes. In Oklahoma. I’m sorry. JOHNNA: Thank you.

  (He finishes his drink, pours another.)

  BEVERLY: May I ask about the name?

  JOHNNA: Hm?

  BEVERLY: He was Youngbird and you are . . .

  JOHNNA: Monevata.

  BEVERLY: “Monevata.”

  JOHNNA: I went back to the original language.

  BEVERLY: And does it mean “young bird”?

  JOHNNA: Yes.

  BEVERLY: And taking the name, that was your choice? JOHNNA: Mm-hm.

  BEVERLY (Raising his glass): Cheers.

  (Violet calls from offstage.)

  VIOLET (Offstage): Bev . . . ?

  BEVERLY (To himself):By night within that ancient house Immense, black, damned, anonymous.

  (Lights up, dimly, on the second-floor landing. Just out of bed, wearing wrinkled clothes, smoking a Winston, Violet squints down the darkened stairway.)

  VIOLET: Bev!

  BEVERLY: Yes?

  VIOLET: Did you pullish . . . ?

  BEVERLY: What?

  VIOLET: Did you . . .

  (Long pause. Violet stares, waiting for an answer. Beverly stares, waiting for her to complete her question.)

  BEVERLY: What, dear?

  VIOLET: Oh, goddamn it . . . did. You. Are the police here?