August: Osage County (22 page)

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Authors: Tracy Letts

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IVY: You’re monsters.

VIOLET: Come on now—

IVY: Picking the bones of the rest of us—

VIOLET: You crazy nut.

IVY: Monsters.

VIOLET: Who’s the injured party here?

(Ivy staggers out of the dining room, into the living room. Barbara pursues her.)

BARBARA: Ivy, listen—

IVY: Leave me alone!

BARBARA: Honey—

IVY: I won’t let you do this to me!

BARBARA: When Mattie Fae told me, I didn’t know what to do—

IVY: I won’t let you change my story!

(Ivy exits. Barbara chases after her and catches her on the front porch.)

BARBARA: Goddamn it, listen to me: I tried to protect you—

IVY: We’ll go anyway. We’ll still go away, and you will never see me again.

BARBARA: Don’t leave me like this.

IVY:
You will never see me again.

BARBARA: This is not my fault. I didn’t tell you,
Mom
told you. It wasn’t me, it was
Mom
.

IVY: There’s no difference.

(Ivy exits. Barbara reenters the house. She finds Violet lighting a cigarette in the living room.)

VIOLET: You know well’s I do, we couldn’t let Ivy run off with Little Charles. Just wouldn’t be right. Ivy’s place is right here.

BARBARA: She says she’s leaving anyway.

VIOLET: Nah. She won’t go. She’s a sweet girl, Ivy, and I love her to death. But she isn’t strong. Not like you. Or me.

BARBARA: Right.
(Beat)
You’ve known about Daddy and Mattie Fae all these years.

VIOLET: Oh, sure. I never told them I knew. But your father knew. He knew I knew. He always knew I knew. But we never talked about it. I chose the higher ground.

BARBARA: Right.

VIOLET: Now if I’d had the chance, there at the end, I would’ve told him, “I hope this isn’t about Little Charles, ’cause you know I know all about that.” If I’d reached him at the motel, I would’ve said, “You’d be better off if you quit sulking about this ancient history. And anyway, just ’cause you feel cast down doesn’t let you off the hook.”

BARBARA: If you had reached him at the motel.

VIOLET: I
called
the motel, the Country Squire Motel—

BARBARA:—the Country Squire Motel, right—

VIOLET:—but it was too late, he must’ve already checked out.

I called over there on Monday, after I got into that safety deposit box. I told you I had to wait until Monday morning for the bank to open so I could get into that safety deposit box. I should’ve called him sooner, I guess, should’ve called the police, or Ivy, someone. But Beverly and I had an arrangement. You have to understand, for people like your father and me, who never had any money, ever, as kids, people from our generation, that money is important.

BARBARA: How’d you know where he was?

VIOLET: He left a note. Said I could call him at the Country Squire Motel. And I did, I did call him, called him on Monday.

BARBARA: After you got into your safety deposit box.

VIOLET: We had an arrangement.

BARBARA: If you could’ve stopped Daddy from killing himself, you wouldn’t have
needed
to get into your safety deposit box.

VIOLET: Well, hindsight’s twenty-twenty, isn’t it.

BARBARA: Did the note say Daddy was going to kill himself?

(No response.)

Mom?

VIOLET: If I’d had my wits about me, I might’ve done it different. But I was, your father and me both, we were . . .

BARBARA: You were both fucked-up.
(Beat)
You were fucked-up.
(Beat)
You’re fucked-up.

VIOLET: You had better understand this, you smug little ingrate, there is at least one reason Beverly killed himself and that’s
you
. Think there’s any way he would’ve done what he did if you were still here? No, just him and me, here in this house, in the dark, left to just ourselves, abandoned, wasted lifetimes devoted to your care and comfort. So stick that knife of judgment in me, go ahead, but make no mistake, his blood is just as much on your hands as it is on mine.

(No response. Violet enters the study. Barbara follows.)

He did this, though; this was his doing, not ours. Can you imagine anything more cruel, to make
me
responsible? And why, just to weaken me, just to make me prove my character? So no, I waited, I waited so I could get my hands on that safety deposit box, but I would have waited anyway. You want to show who’s stronger, Bev? Nobody is stronger than me, goddamn it. When nothing is left, when everything is gone and disappeared, I’ll be here. Who’s stronger now, you son-of-a-bitch?!

BARBARA: No, you’re right, Mom. You’re the strong one.

(Barbara kisses her mother . . . exits the study, returns to the living room. Violet calls after her.)

VIOLET: Barbara?

(Barbara grabs her purse, digs out rental car keys.)

Barbara?

(Barbara stands, listens to her mother.)

Barbara, please.

(Barbara exits the house.)

Please, Barbara.
Please.

(Violet shuffles into the living room.)

Barbara? You in here?

(She crosses to the dining room.)

Ivy? Ivy, you here? Barb?

(She crosses to the kitchen.)

Barb? Ivy?

(She turns in a circle, disoriented, panicked. She crosses to the study.)

Bev?

(She reenters the living room, stumbles to the stereo, puts on Clapton . . . stares at the turntable as the album spins . . attacks the record player, rakes the needle across the album. She looks around, terrified, disoriented.)

Johnna?!

(She reels to the stairway, crawls up the stairs on all fours.)

Johnna, Johnna, Johnna . . .

(She arrives on the second floor. Johnna puts her plate of food aside and turns toward the stairs. Violet, on all fours, continues up the stairs to the attic. She arrives in Johnna’s room. She scrabbles into Johnna’s lap. Johnna holds Violet’s head, smoothes her hair, rocks her.)

And then you’re gone, and Beverly, and then you’re gone, and Barbara, and then you’re gone, and then you’re gone, and then you’re gone—

(Johnna quietly sings to Violet.)

JOHNNA: “This is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends, this is the way the world ends . . .”

VIOLET:—and then you’re gone, and then you’re gone, and then you’re gone, and then you’re gone—

(Blackout.)

END OF PLAY

TRACY LETTS
is the author of
Killer Joe
,
Bug
and
Man from Nebraska
, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He is a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where
August: Osage County
premiered. His latest play is
Superior Donuts
.

August: Osage County
is published by Theatre Communications Group, Inc., 520 Eighth Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10018-4156

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Professionals and amateurs are hereby warned that this material, being fully protected under the Copyright Laws of the United States of America and all other countries of the Berne and Universal Copyright Conventions, is subject to a royalty. All rights including, but not limited to, professional, amateur, recording, motion picture, recitation, lecturing, public reading, radio and television broadcasting, and the rights of translation into foreign languages are expressly reserved. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of readings and all uses of this book by educational institutions, permission for which must be secured from the author’s representative: Ron Gwiazda, Abrams Artists Agency, 275 Seventh Avenue, 26th Floor, New York, NY 10001, (646) 461-9325.

All the King’s Men
is copyright © 1946 by Robert Penn Warren, Harvest Books, Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, revised edition 1996. “The Hollow Men” by T. S. Eliot,
The Complete Poems and Plays 1909-1950
, Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1952, 1971.
The Dream Songs
(contains
His Toy, His Dream, His Rest
) by John Berryman, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York, 2007. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson,
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
, a Back Bay Book, Little, Brown & Company, 1960, 1976.

This publication is made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency.

TCG books are exclusively distributed to the book trade by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Letts, Tracy, 1965-
August: Osage County / by Tracy Letts.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-559-36609-0

1. Family—Drama. 2. Husband and wife—Drama. 3. Parent and adult
child—Drama. 4. Oklahoma—Drama. 5. Domestic drama. 6. Tragicomedy.
I. Title.

PS3612.E887A75 2007
812’.6—dc22 2007051952