Violet Weston

Living… in August, Osage County, Oklahoma, in a house that is falling apart. Her husband Beverly’s hired a woman to cook and clean and take Violet to the clinic. She’ll be assuming Violet’s former duties. Violet isn’t happy about that.

Profession… retired and unable to work since her diagnosis of mouth cancer. Preparation for chemotherapy has taken up most of her time. All the drugs she’s taking – Valium, Vicodin, Darvon, Darvocet, Percodan, Perocet, Xanax, OxyContin – make it difficult to do much else.

Interests… making sure her children know how much she resents them. For example, Ivy’s the prettiest of the three girls, but Violet claims she always looks like a schlub. Violet lets her (mostly negative) opinions of her daughters’ love lives known loud and clear. Before that, she had parakeets for a while. That was a disaster as well.

Relationship Status... constant tension. Violet resents her husband Beverly for having a stranger come work at the house. He resents their unspoken arrangement, that he drink and she take pills. It feels like some cruel covenant – both enabling each other to the point of routine. And now it seems Beverly has gone missing.

Challenge… making peace with her past and future. Violet doesn’t want to be nostalgic for the rest of her life. Yet she hates old age. She doesn’t think women age as gracefully as men – herself included. Plus, where in the hell has her husband gone?

Personality… cold-blooded and sharp-tongued. The pills take her in every direction at once. They affect her equilibrium. At her best, she’s eccentric; for starters she doesn’t believe in air conditioning despite living in Oklahoma. At her worst, she’s impossible.