I would have thought everyone was rushing to adjust their best of the year lists now the matchless Steppenwolf ensemble has opened in London with August:Osage County at the National.

But apparently not. Objections I’ve heard so far include “too Gothic” and “too implausible,” which suggests we’ve become immune to the power of the hyper theatrical and would rather settle for the slight, the trivial, the earnestly discreet in our acting.

It’s as if the guardians of theatrical practice were saying, please keep the noise down, we’re trying to get a good sleep in here.

Ways of looking at acting have shrivelled along with, for most of the time, the acting itself. Royal Court naturalism is something to do with this, but I think we’ve also allowed ourselves to be duped for too long by RSC style shouting as opposed to the genuine rage, pain and sideswipe of American realism at its very best.

I can’t think of a company acting performance to rival that of Steppenwolf unless I go back to the incomparable Rustaveli Theatre of Georgia twenty years ago, or the Moscow Art Theatre beyond that. And a similar adrenaline rush of sheer pleasure in barnstorming, expressive acting was once relayed by the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv and the Abbey in Dublin.

What all of these troupes had in common was strength in depth in the middle-aged range of actors, a common purpose in expressing the emotion of a scene without falsity or spotlight-hugging vanity, and total authenticity of physical presence.

By the last attribute I mean the perfect alignment of inner life and its outer manifestation in appearance, gesture, tone of voice, deportment and pace of movement. When the adulterous teacher in August:Osage County is trapped between his decency as a father and parent and his own carnal weakness, the crisis is conveyed in every flicker of his voice, face and movement.

His speech and very being is flooded by the condition of his soul. Like every other character in the play, he has a convincing and affecting life before and beyond the timescale of this particular drama. We know, in every sense of the word, where he’s coming from. And, more to the pont, where he’s going to.

The role is played by Jeff Perry, one of the three founders of Steppenwolf in Chicago back in 1975 — the others were Terry Kinney and Gary Sinise (now of CSI: New York fame), soon to be joined by John Malkovich.

Last night’s fraternal showdown at the Almeida in Neil LaBute’s In a Dark Dark House reminded me of the first time I saw Steppenwolf in New York back in 1982. Sinise and Malkovich played Shepard’s brothers in True West in a small theatre in Greenwich Village.

The performance was electrifying, way beyond the intensity of British actors who had been playing in Shepard in London for at least ten years. Quarter of a century on, the miracle of Steppenwolf continues.

Tracy Letts, the author of August:Osage County, is a permanent member of the forty-strong ensemble, the like of which, in acting terms, we have simply never had in this country, even in the heyday of the RSC and the National in the early years.

American actors have done well on the London stage in recent years. We’ve welcomed and relished the unique flair and passion of Kathleen Turner, Jessica Lange, Jake Gyllenghall, Christian Slater and Josh Hartnett. But for sheer company perfection, the real deal in the real best of American ensemble acting, you have to go see Steppenwolf. Their visit is the highlight of the year.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 28th, 2008 at 7:52 am and is filed under Michael Coveney. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.