Theater, Not Dance

It’s miserable out there.

When I returned from seeing the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Aronoff, I logged onto the computer and saw a Facebook post by Michael Shooner. It’s about the Clifton Players/Untethered Theater  production of “August: Osage County.”

“Finest ensemble you will see this season,” he wrote. “Do whatever it takes to see this show. Wow!”

I completely agree.

I was there opening night, but for reasons too complicated to explain, I didn’t have occasion to review the show.

But it’s been two weeks since I saw the show and I can’t get it out of my mind. And now, thanks to an inadvertent nudge from Michael, I will write a little bit.

“August: Osage County” is a deadly serious play. And it’s long – well over three hours the night I saw it. And yes, the chairs in the Clifton Performance Theater are still not the most comfortable. (They’re not the worst, either.)

But none of that stuff makes a difference. This is a production, as Michael said, with a fabulous ensemble of actors. Seriously. If Cincinnati theater had an all-star team, you’d find a whole bunch of these people on the roster.

In alphabetical order, the cast includes Bob Allen, Carol Brammer, Carter Bratton, Kevin Crowley, Christine Dye, Mindy Heithaus, Buz Davis (who also directs), Dale Hodges, MaryKate Moran, Nathan Neorr, Leah Strasser, Sarah White and Reggie Willis.

A big, big cast and there’s not a weak link in it.

In case you don’t know the play, which won the 2008 Pulitzer, here’s a quick summary.

It takes place in a dismal little town located in the middle of an Osage Reservation on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma. It revolves around what is surely the most dysfunctional extended family you’ve ever seen on the stage.

A few decades back, Beverly Weston (Davis) was regarded as a poet with promise. But since then, his life has been one of teaching halfheartedly while drinking wholeheartedly. His wife Violet (Hodges) is dying of cancer. But it’s anyone’s guess whether the disease or her multiple drug addictions will kill her first.

When Beverly disappears, the entire family returns to the family homestead. And for the next three hours, they exact all manner of verbal cruelty on one another.

It is shocking and horrifying and fascinating and . . . well, you wish it didn’t seem so real. But it does, quite brilliantly. And since the Clifton Performance Theatre is soooooo tiny – 60 people is an overflow crowd – all of this harshness is right in your face.

It’s excruciating. And you can’t take your eyes off it. (Continued below.)

There’s much more I probably should say here. Like how intriguing it is to see Crowley and Strasser play characters that are so different from what we have seen them do recently. She’s quiet and subdued. He’s withdrawn and easily intimidated. Or how very creepy Neorr is in his scenes with White. You’re so horrified by him that you want to leap up and grab the guy and thrash him.

Or how Brammer and Allen both have scenes so shattering and emotionally overpowering that you will surely count them among the best things you see this year. Same with Hodges. She may seem a fragile presence, but she has no problem summoning up the vitriol to torture every character around her. And just when you think she can’t be any more heartless, she is.

Or how very heartbreaking Bratton and Moran are. And how precarious a character Heithaus can create. Or how comforting it is when Reggie Willis steps onto the stage. Or how unfeeling Dye’s character can be as she teeters on the edge.

They’re all so good. And much of that is thanks to Davis, who contains playwright Tracy Letts’ imploding world and then ever-so-carefully unleashes moments of its mayhem.

“August: Osage County” runs through March 14. At least a couple of those performances are already sold out. But since the weather is unspeakably crappy at the moment, there’s hope that there may be a few seats left.

So take Michael Shooner’s much more succinctly stated advice and go see this show. It really is something quite extraordinary.

For more info, call 513-861-7469; cliftonperformancetheatre.com.