A toxic family blows its top

Jennifer Ludlam plays drug-addicted Violet in August: Osage County. Photo / The Aucklander.

In recent years, Auckland theatre-goers have had the opportunity to dine out on contemporary American drama. Frequently razor-sharp in its humour and astute observations of modern life, local versions of these productions have been sharply cast and directed, sassily performed and resonant to increasingly varied audiences.

But to stick with the dining metaphor, this theatre has tended to be of the "small plates" variety. Piquant, but leaving you wanting more.

With the exception of the Silo Theatre's masterful Take Me Out in 2006, casts are likely to number no more than five, the settings are metropolitan and the themes are urban and urbane: contemporary relationships, sexuality and modern malaise.

Now Auckland Theatre Company is poised to open one of America's meatiest theatrical hits of the past two years, August: Osage County by Tracy Letts.

With a cast of 13, and set in middle America, it is described as "an epic tragi-comedy about family" and has won pretty much every major theatre award: the 2008 Tony Award for Best Play, the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and, in the same year, the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play.

In the New York Times, critic Charles Isherwood declared it "the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years" while Britain's Daily Telegraph's Matt Wolf dubbed it "the first outsized American play of this century".

Playwright Letts' previous work includes Killer Joe, Bug and The Man From Nebraska. He told Wolf he created August as the antithesis of the smaller US contemporary drama, deliberately writing it big, bold and as a political parable.

Set during a sweltering summer in Oklahoma, all is not well in the Weston family home. Patriarch Beverly Weston (Stuart Devenie), a former academic turned poet, drinks while his wife, Violet (Jennifer Ludlam), is a bitter, drug-addicted ageing matriarch with a tongue so acidic, Letts wrote the character with cancer of the mouth.

Letts says she encapsulates a greater American malaise.

When Beverly mysteriously disappears, the couple's three daughters come home. There's Barb (Jennifer Ward-Lealand) who's struggling to control her wayward daughter, Jean (Elizabeth McMenamin), especially since her husband, Bill (Alistair Browning), left for a younger woman.

Youngest sister Karen (Andi Crown) arrives with a disturbingly slick fiance (Peter Daube), who seems to have a dark penchant or two which Violet's sister, Aunt Mattie Fae (Alison Quigan) makes it her business to uncover. An archetypal busybody, she is determined to take charge, much to the annoyance of her husband, Charlie (Andrew Grainger), and hen-pecked son Little Charles (Gareth Reeves).

Then there is middle daughter, Ivy (Hera Dunleavy), who has stayed in town and, in her own quiet manner, found a way to accommodate her mother - but Mommie might be surprised by the plans Ivy is making.

With its sultry atmosphere, epic themes and classic three-act structure, August has seen Letts compared with American playwrights such as Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill and Edward Albee.

Like those theatrical giants, the play rises and falls on the strength of its female characters, particularly the toxic Violet. When it was first suggested to Ludlam she should consider auditioning for the role, her reaction was "I don't think I could do it".

A graduate from Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School in 1970, Ludlam has worked throughout New Zealand and Australia. Her role in the film Apron Strings won her the Best Actress Award in the 2009 Qantas Film Awards, while theatre appearances include Roger Hall's Taking Off, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Vita and Virginia, Happy Days and Death of a Salesman.

Appointed a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for Services to the Arts in 2004, Ludlam also won the Best Actress Award at the New Zealand Film and Television Awards for the drama series Cover Story and the same award three years earlier for the telemovie Under Cover.

That she could possibly have doubts about a role seems unbelievable. "But I'm like a lot of actors - I battle with low self-esteem."

She got the script for August, read through it, and 40 years of training and work experience came to the fore.

"The hardest thing has been finding the right level between Violet's drugged-out state and still being able to understand and know the lines well enough so they just appear like a stream of consciousness."

Earlier this year, Ludlam played another mother-cum-battleaxe in Silo Theatre's When the Rain Stops Falling. She admits it was a major boost when friends said they couldn't recognise her without make-up, her hair pulled into a tight bun and frumpy clothes.

"I loved playing that character. You didn't know why it was so horrible until the very end and then it all fell into place. I loved the theatricality of that play - it was a true high point for me."

But the 59-year-old is quick to point out two major roles in succession doesn't necessarily mean there is more work around for mature women.

"I regard myself as extremely lucky to have had two plays and two characters like this in the same year. It is the exception rather than the norm. Ordinarily we don't rate."

All of which comes as a disappointment to Hera Dunleavy, who plays the mousy Ivy.

"I love watching older, more experienced actors on stage. They bring such life experience and it almost becomes as if you don't have to try to act so much.

"It's to do with building up trust in yourself and being in touch with who you are and not caring about what you look like or what others think but just having the confidence to be there."

Soon to turn 40, Dunleavy says she believes she's only just beginning to hit her stride thanks, in part, to comic characters she's played in shows such as The Female of the Species and the recent dance spectacular Stepping Out.

She has worked at all of New Zealand's professional theatres with roles in productions such as Oliver, The Pohutukawa Tree, God of Carnage, Uncle Vanya, The Crucible, Honour, The Cherry Orchard, Cat on a Hot Tin Roo, Sons and Three Days of Rain.

Dunleavy and Ludlam appeared together in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and both are enjoying the chance to reunite on an equally satisfying and complex drama.

But Dunleavy says she has never played a character like Ivy, whom she describes as a quiet observer.

"She's a thinking kind of a person, maybe a bit of a drifter but she works from the heart. Some people thought I might be too young to play her but I am nearly 40 which is about the same age as Ivy.

"People can pigeon-hole you into what they think you can do but that's part of being an actor, breaking out and showing new sides to yourself. This is a real actors' piece. It's an epic story with so much comedy and tragedy. In fact, it's got everything and it provides a great playground to play and explore in."

Performance

What: August: Osage County

Where and when: Maidment Theatre, September 4-25