Thursday night, we attended the theater and saw August: Osage County at the Rep. This play portrays the Weston family of Pawhuska, OK, who collectively totally take the fun out of dysfunctional. Presented in three acts, after the first one, I seriously considered asking Anne if we could leave, but I knew that she would say no. On my way out to the lobby, I noticed another couple who were already acting on my wishes. After the second act, again during intermission, I was in the men’s room where I let out a heavy sigh. Another guy there offered his hope that maybe there would be some redemption in the third act. I told him that I was just hoping for a Hamlet ending, where everyone dies at the end.

In the play, this family seemingly committed every sin imaginable. Enumerating them, you have infidelity, drug addiction, alcoholism, child molestation, incest, suicide, bigotry and just plain meanness. I realize that some of these sins are forms of mental illness, but when you smuggle pills into rehab using your cooch, you have a problem. There was no redemptive moment at the end and only one person died. Everything just collapsed in upon itself with a whimper.