“August: Osage County”, a play not to miss: London November 21, 2008 – January 21, 2009
4 Sep, 08 | by Deborah Kirklin
There are some plays that leave you, quite literally, breathless with awe. Osage County is one of them. At 3 hours and 20 minutes, this remarkable play is longer than average, and so it’s a tribute to the brilliance of the script, staging, direction and acting that it nevertheless rushes by. Watching Osage County in New York this summer, I can’t have been the only member of the audience who would have happily stayed put, there and then, to watch it all over again.
Sex, drugs, and a dysfunctional family to rival any Tennessee Williams gave us, are all on offer in this Pulitzer and Tony Award®winning American play. Written by Tracy Letts and directed by Anna D. Shapiro, Osage County comes to London from Broadway for just 8 weeks. Its reputation precedes it so doubtless it will sell out fast.
So, if you’re lucky enough to be nearby, visit www.nationaltheatre.org.uk and book your tickets fast.
See you there!
Medical Humanities
Thanks very much for the recommendation to go and see this play. It was sold out, and had we not bought tickets so far in advance based on this review we would have missed it. It was indeed an impressive production. I particularly relished the family-dinner-from-hell scene which had the audience collectively groaning with dismay as things went from terrible to catastrophic. The dysfunctional family saga depicted here would not seem out of place in a TV soap opera, but the strictures of the play form lent a magisterial air to what otherwise might have seem sordid, aided by the magnificent set consisting of a three-storey house. Tracy Letts is definitely a playwright to watch.
Giskin Day
January 29th, 2009 at 4:52 pm