Play Review: August: Osage County

The theme of the dysfunctional family is one that has been flogged to death in theatre. But August: Osage County, a 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama by American playwright Tracy Letts, is a penetrating, tragic and enormously funny story of a family that’s a hair away from a nervous meltdown. However, Lillete Dubey’s production of the play, which she will stage at the NCPA this Saturday, is frustratingly flat.

Dubey transplants the story to the home of a Goan family, the Mirandas. Leon (Denzil Smith) drinks. His wife Violet (Lillete Dubey) is addicted to pills. When Leon goes missing one morning, the couple’s three daughters are summoned from across the country. They’re all volatile characters heaving beneath the weight of pent-up resentment and personal frustrations and when they come together, an emotional conflagration ensues. The fuse is Violet, a mercurial, manipulative, emotionally needy woman whose tartness is sharpened by the pain of mouth cancer. As a result, she’s not very popular with the rest of the family. Barbara (Sandhya Mridul), who has inherited her mother’s acerbic tongue, forcefully takes charge of the situation even as her marriage falls apart. Ivy (Suchitra Pillai), who resents having to live in Goa to care for her parents, tries to hide a terrible secret. And the frothy Karen, played by Mita Vashist, is desperate to find happiness with her lecherous boyfriend.

Dubey excels at playing loud, melodramatic roles such as this. But her performance overshadows the rest of the cast that can’t keep up with the demanding tempo of the play. The exception is Kitu Gidwani who is excellent as Violet’s sister, Matty. While she’s tamer than her sister, she too can be cruel in a way that drives her husband (Amar Talwar) and son (Danny Sura) to despair. Mridul, on the other hand, wastes some of the best lines in the play by barking throughout while Vashist’s unnatural falsetto begins to grate soon after she makes an entrance.

Tata Theatre

LocationNational Centre for the Performing Arts
NCPA Marg
Nariman Point

Phone6622 3737

Relevant DatesSaturday, August 28

Hours7pm

Ticketing & Price InfoRs260, Rs400, Rs500, Rs700, Rs1,000

Websitewww.ncpamumbai.com