August: Osage County is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Tracy Letts, with the original Broadway production garnering 15 awards.

Somehow, however, the darkness and hilarity of the plot and characters have been lost in this production by the Adelaide Repertory Theatre. It’s a bit too safe in its handling of the familial confrontation, although it has a reverential tone and strong performances.

Director David Sinclair doesn’t really capture the potency of the strong-willed women who come home because of a family crisis, nor that of the dysfunctional matriarch who becomes increasingly maladjusted and debilitated.  Each character is competing for attention and the one-upmanship leads from one revelation to another as the household declines into a mass of unpleasantness.

Dark though the tale is, there are moments of light and sensitivity, especially at the beginning when Beverley Weston (Nicholas Bishop) reveals his wisdom concerning living a long life to Johnna (Melissa Esposito), his new Native American, housekeeper.  He’s a poet and alcoholic who quotes TS Eliot’s The Hollow Men.

When Beverley disappears and is found dead in a lake, his wife Violet (Nikki Fort), diagnosed with oral cancer, falls apart.  Her three daughters – the unmarried Ivy (Bronwen James); Barbara (Helen Geoffreys), who is having marital problems with her husband Bill (Adam Tuominen); and Karen (Lisa Lacy), a lovelorn delusionist – gather in the family home in Oklahoma to provide support for their mother. There, they also meet Violet’s sister Mattie-Fay (Sue Wylie), her husband Charlie (Tom Carney), and their son Little Charles (Alan Fitzpatrick).

The clan bickers and fights, but it’s a revelation about Little Charles’ paternity and his secret affair with a family member that brings the Westons to the brink of catastrophe.

The performances are admirable all round, and the set, lighting and costumes are excellent. But the play is short of emotional impact, which is strange, considering it’s filled with high drama.

August: Osage County is playing at the Arts Theatre until June 28.