August: Osage County

August: Osage County by American playwright Tracy Letts premiered at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre in June 2007 and debuted on Broadway in December of the same year. When Beverly, the Weston family patriarch, goes missing, a web of estranged family members travel home to gather around his vitriolic spouse, Violet. The play is semi-autobiographical, and Letts explores themes of addiction, suicide, and generational trauma from his own childhood in Oklahoma. In 2008, August: Osage County won the Tony Award for Best Play, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Broadway Play, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In 2013, the play was adapted into an award-winning film.

This guide uses the edition of August: Osage County published by Theatre Communications Group in 2008.

Content Warning: This guide describes and discusses the play’s treatment of death by suicide, alcohol addiction, narcotic addiction, racism, incest, sexual assault of a minor, and child abuse.

Plot Summary

August: Osage County is a three-act play set in the present day in a small town in Oklahoma. In the play’s prologue, former poet and professor Beverly Weston interviews Johnna, a young Cheyenne woman, to be a live-in caretaker for his wife, Violet, who has mouth cancer. Beverly, who drinks throughout the interview, explains that Violent has a substance abuse disorder and mood swings. Although Violet wanders into the interview high and incoherent, Johnna takes the job.

When the first act begins several weeks later, Beverly has been missing for five days and family members have gathered at his house. Violet’s sister Mattie Fae and her husband, Charlie, and Violet’s daughter Ivy arrive and try to be supportive, but Violet lashes out at them constantly. Violet’s oldest (and estranged) daughter Barbara, Barbara’s husband Bill, and their 14-year-old daughter, Jean, arrive from Colorado, and again, fighting breaks out immediately. Johnna, the caregiver, lives in the attic, but Violet is hostile to her and treats her as an interloper. There are suspicions that Beverly died by suicide, and the discovery that his boat is missing confirms that. At the end of Act I, the town sheriff arrives to inform the family that Beverly’s body has been found in the lake. Violet, who is high on painkillers, stumbles in, puts on an Eric Clapton record, and dances clumsily as the family stares at her.

Act II begins after Beverly’s funeral, and Karen, the youngest Weston daughter, has traveled from Florida with her fiancé, Steve, whose praises she sings excessively to Barbara. Mattie Fae looks through old photos with Violet and Ivy. She criticizes her son Little Charles, who slept through the memorial service, which angers her husband. Further heightening the tension, Violet badgers Ivy to wear a dress, since she wore a suit to the funeral. When Violet threatens that Ivy won’t find a man, she admits that she is dating someone, but she refuses to say whom. After a trip to the store with Bill and Steve, Jean goes to watch a movie on television. Steve joins her and teases her inappropriately, making sexually explicit jokes and offering to get high with Jean later. When Little Charles arrives, Ivy goes out to meet him, and it becomes clear that he is the man she is seeing, although they are first cousins: They are in love and plan to move to New York together. At dinner, Violet is high and mean, and the family tension peaks as Barbara accosts Violet to take away her pills. The two women wrestle as the rest of the family tries to separate them. Barbara emerges as the winner, ordering a raid of the house to find all Violet’s stashes of pills, declaring her newly won dominance over Violet.

In Act III, the three Weston sisters drink whiskey in the study and talk about their mother’s addiction. At Barbara’s pressing, Ivy admits that she is involved with Little Charles. Violet enters, now involuntarily sober, and she shares a rare peaceful moment with her daughters. Ivy and Little Charles have a sweet interaction, but Mattie Fae enters and belittles Little Charles cruelly until Charlie intervenes. Alone with Mattie Fae, Charlie threatens divorce if she can’t find some kindness for her son. Mattie Fae notices Barbara, who was accidentally eavesdropping, and asks about Ivy and Little Charles; Barbara reluctantly confirms the relationship. Mattie Fae reveals that Beverly is actually Little Charles’s father, and Barbara needs to stop Ivy from dating her half-brother. Jean and Steve enter, high and laughing, until Steve turns off the lights and starts to sexually assault Jean. Johnna turns on the lights and hits Steve with a pan. Woken by the noise, Karen enters, and she and Steve pack and leave immediately, Karen admitting to Barbara that she still plans to marry him. Barbara, furious, ends up fighting with Jean and slapping her. Bill takes Jean and goes back to Colorado. The next night, Ivy tries to tell Violet that she is going to New York with Little Charles, but Violet reveals first that they’re siblings. Ivy leaves, horrified, and it becomes clear that Violet knew all about their relationship. Barbara learns that Beverly left a note mentioning the motel where he was staying and that Violet could have reached him and possibly prevented his death. She gathers her things and leaves. Alone and distraught, Violet finds Johnna in the attic and cries as Johnna comforts her.