August: Osage County

August: Osage County Features

Additional August: Osage County Information

Winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

“A tremendous achievement in American playwriting: a tragicomic populist portrait of a tough land and a tougher people.”—Time Out New York

“Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County is what O’Neill would be writing in 2007. Letts has recaptured the nobility of American drama’s mid-century heyday while still creating something entirely original.”—New York magazine

One of the most bracing and critically acclaimed plays in recent Broadway history, August: Osage County is a portrait of the dysfunctional American family at its finest—and absolute worst. When the patriarch of the Weston clan disappears one hot summer night, the family reunites at the Oklahoma homestead, where long-held secrets are unflinchingly and uproariously revealed. The three-act, three-and-a-half-hour mammoth of a play combines epic tragedy with black comedy, dramatizing three generations of unfulfilled dreams and leaving not one of its thirteen characters unscathed. After its sold-out Chicago premiere, the play has electrified audiences in New York since its opening in November 2007.

Tracy Letts is the author of Killer Joe, Bug, and Man from Nebraska, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His plays have been performed throughout the country and internationally. A performer as well as a playwright, Letts is a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where August: Osage County premiered.

What Customers Say About August: Osage County:

I did secure the role of Karen, which is exciting. This is a very interesting dark comedy about a disfunctional midwestern family. I read it because my community theater group is doing a workshop on it. The characters are complex and the dynamics are psychologically compelling. This is a good play, for those interested in reading good scripts or for directors and theater groups to consider for production.

A very disappointing book, only because it is written as dialogue for a stage performance, rather than in a novel form. Regretable only because the play was, according to people who saw it, a magnificent and powerful production.

Letts presents a modern dark comedy while adhering to the traditional play structure. Well written. Touches on many issues of the dysfunctional American family. Be sure to check out the poem which the play is named after. See the acknowledgments.

And people like me will start going back to the theater. Not only has the greed of capitalism ruined Wall Street, but it has also ruined Broadway.

There was a time when theater would have something profound to say in an artistic manner, such as O'Neill's THE ICEMAN COMETH and LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, Williams' THE GLASS MENAGERIE and A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, Miller's DEATH OF A SALESMAN and THE CRUCIBLE, Brecht's THE GOOD PERSON OF SZECHUAN and MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN, etc. As far as I am concerned, AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY is a perfect example of the present state of American theater: it is trying too hard to be like the sit-coms and soaps on TV and screwball comedies in the movies.

It is surprising that the Pulitzer Prize once went to a monumental achievement like DEATH OF A SALESMAN and now it's going to something like AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY. Nowadays we are seeing light-weight plays, such as DRIVING MISS DAISY, THE HEIDI CHRONICLES, EASTERN STANDARD, etc.

I'm not surprised AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY won the Pulitzer Prize--so did DRIVING MISS DAISY, and that's not saying much. When Broadway stops caring about huge profits, then the American theater may regain its excellence.

(Don't get me started on Broadway musicals that are remakes of movies).

August: Osage County is Tracy Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning play, which debuted in 2007. Most of them spend most of their time hashing out their problems in nasty, unpleasant ways. Some people may think that makes good drama; others will rightly ask, "so what." and "what's the point.". It deals with the reunion of a family in rural Oklahoma after the death of its patriarch. I, for one, am hard-pressed to understand just what about the play was Pulitzer-worthy. During this time, skeletons come out of closets, and drama ensues. It is typically billed as a dark comedy or tragicomedy. Letts seems to be under the impression that the way to go here is to create as many irreconcilable issues as he can and then not resolve any of them.

The play features 13 characters, and most of them get a substantial amount of attention from the author. Balancing all these characters is something Letts does particularly well, and this is especially highlighted when there are two and three conversations going on simultaneously.Very few of these characters are the least bit sympathetic. August: Osage County certainly has its moments, but it's never particularly innovative or impressive.