August take 2

In December I wrote about the terrific play Steppenwolf Theater Company play August:Osage County by Tracy Letts. I saw it last summer in its world premiere in Chicago. At Thanksgiving it moved to Broadway and a two months ago Tracy Letts won the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Tomorrow it is up for Tony Awards for Best play, two best actress and four other awards. It's terrific and I wish them all luck.

This is what I wrote in December.

All happy families are alike, Tolstoy told us, and each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. But I’d bet the farm that no family has ever been as unhappy in as many ways — and to such sensationally entertaining effect — as the Westons of “August: Osage County,” the new play by Tracy Letts that blazed open last night at the Imperial Theater.

A fraught, densely plotted saga of an Oklahoma clan in a state of near-apocalyptic meltdown, “August” is probably the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years. Oh, forget probably: It is, flat-out, no asterisks and without qualifications, the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years. Fiercely funny and bitingly sad, this turbo-charged tragicomedy — which spans three acts and more than three blissful hours — doesn’t just jump-start the fall theater season, recently stalled when the stagehands went on strike. “August” throws it instantaneously into high gear.

You can read the rest of the review here. I am glad I got to see the show in Chicago.

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/theater/reviews/05august.html?ref=arts


PeterH