Review: Elokuu

A STAGE FULL OF ACADEMIC MIDDLE CLASS AND HORRIBLE

Tracy Letts’ nasty drama has thirteen good roles

Tracy Letts set her first play, Killer-Joe , which was also seen in Finland, in the shabby family hell of American white trash.

August, which had its Finnish premiere at the Helsinki City Theatre, has climbed the ladder of society to the academic middle class, but all hell still reigns.


The women of the Weston family develop meanness into an art form. The toxic matriarch Violet, brilliantly played by Ritva Valkama , is an unbearable narcissist who immediately shows symptoms if someone else manages to attract attention.

But everything has a reason. When you’ve been left without as a child, you’re always without, no matter what you get. Valkama acts out the thoughts and even their glimpses beautifully and fearlessly.

Violet is not alone in her mischief.

When the layers peel off, it turns out that most of the women in the family have quite a few teeth. Through them, two ways of relating to an abusive world are structured. Others resort to illusion, charm, femininity, such as Violet’s sister Mattie Fae (Leena Uotila) and daughter Karen ( Aino Seppo).

Others, such as Violet herself and her favorite daughter Barbara (Riitta Havukainen), opt for disillusioned cynicism and a direct attack. The third daughter, Ivy ( Heidi Herala), is left in the in-between state – she has no illusions but still refuses to be cynical.

The men, the family’s late patriarch Beverly (Juhani Niemelä), Charlie (Seppo Maijala), his son Little Charlie (Sami Uotila) and Barbara’s husband Bill ( Matti Olavi Ranin) try to endure, survive, find a way out – each in any way.


Kari Heiskanen’s direction spreads the situations broadly on an open stage.

It brings welcome air to the anxiety-ridden family gathering and gives space to all the people together and separately.

Letts’ play is a rarity, as it has thirteen good roles, which in the City Theatre’s performance are realised as thirteen fine roles.


In August, the acting is wonderful throughout: we seize the moment, take a break in place, give and take space when the time comes. The roles have both their most sensitive and painful point and the point that makes the rage boil over. Hannu Lindholm’s set design focuses on depicting the landscape rather than the social class. The hot, desolate plain of Oklahoma is present on stage both as an image and as a space.

There is only one chubby padded leather sofa that communicates the middle class, otherwise the references offered by the text have been taken according to the development of decay. However, Sari Salmela’s costumes bring style and standard of living to the performance.