I
find myself an increasingly stronger proponent of multi-ethnic (a.k.a.
non-traditional or “rainbow”) casting, the more I see the positive and
astonishing ripple effect it has on real life society (I’m convinced it
had
more than a little to do with making an Obama White House possible).
But August:
Osage County has
taken an
envelope-stretching step in presenting Phylicia Rashad as its troubled family’s pill-addicted,
domineering matriarch Violet Weston (following Deana Duaigan and Estelle Parsons).
The
socio-political statement tacitly being made is perfectly fine; but the
potential strain on simple, dramatic verisimilitude proves a real test.
Save
for a young Native American housekeeper (Johnna Monevata), ethnicity is never mentioned, but it
never has
to be it’s implicit. For Tracy Letts’ often very funny, yet deeply sad family
drama, which has resonances
of plays like Long Days’ Journey into Night, takes place in deep South Oklahoma;
every other
character in the play is blood-related; and Ms. Rashad is the only African American on that stage. Unless
you
consciously decide to rationalize
that her character husband’s gene pool is seriously dominant, you must sit back and make a
silent pact
with the production, okay, magic of the theatre. Such a pact is far easier to make when
the event
is something classical, musical or otherwise poetically elevated, which
can
often render literalism moot. But can non-traditional casting survive
the
context of lyric realism?
In
truth, it takes a few minutes to determine. You can actually feel the trial period before both the
patrons and Ms.
Rashad settle into the agreement. But exhilaratingly, in this case, at
least,
the answer is yes.
Ms.
Rashad, who is lately specializing in diverse matriarchs, (as seen in Gem
of
the Ocean, A Raisin
in the
Sun, and the all-black
Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof) doesn’t
precisely
make you “forget” or “ignore” the ethnic contrast so much as she (with
the rest
of the cast) renders it irrelevant. Her Violet is formidably
manipulative and
predatory—the performance unsentimental, unapologetic and, as typical
with this actress, fearlessly powerful.
Also
new to the cast are that constant reliable John Cullum (winningly playing Violet’s husband
with a wry,
laconic delivery), that legendary Southern powerhouse Elizabeth
Ashley as Violet’s
sister, plus Guy Boyd (her husband), Michael Milligan (their grown son), Frank Wood (husband to Violet’s eldest) and Anne
Berkowitz
(his daughter). In
league with
the remaining original cast members and director Anna D. Shapiro, they’ve accomplished one of the more
seamless
replacement transitions I’ve ever seen, and it all still has the
freshness and
high octane dynamic of an opening week ensemble.
May
“non traditional” soon become a misnomer…
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