Review: Elokuu

Valkama maintains order

The broad line of modern American drama runs from the opening of family secrets to the psychopathology of the individual: putting a group of people connected to each other either by blood ties or marriage in the same room, invading each person’s intimate area and seeing what kind of monsters are revealed under the smoothed façade.


Tracy Letts’ In August, only the matriarch of the Weston family does not try to maintain the protective layer of civilized behavior and modesty. That is why Mrs. Violet (Ritva Valkama) becomes the play’s truth-teller, who, in the moment of delirium caused by her drug stupor, puts her sister, three daughters and their spouses in reprimand.

August is naturally tied to the same dramatic tradition as Tennessee Williams , and Tracy Letts’ way of bringing the American countryside and the bleak mental climate of the backwoods into the fates of her characters goes back to William Faulkner’s prose. Only times have gotten tougher since Williams. Hidden bottles and children in the grove are no longer enough to blow up the family idyll, we need themes such as incest.

The dramaturgical turning point is the memorial service for the Weston family’s father, who ended in suicide, which the widow Violet thinks is “a great day for the truth”.


Under Kari Heiskanen’s direction, laughter gets stuck in our throats, and that’s just right for us.