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August: Osage County | |||||||
 
| 80% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: Theatre Communications Group Catalog: Book Release date: 2008-02-01 Media: Paperback Number of pages: 152 Ean: 9781559363303 Book Isbn: 1559363304  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthor:
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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. |
| User Reviews: |
 Written on June 24, 2008 Summary: A new American family drama Letts (who wrote Bugs), provides a mostly normal dysfunctional family drama with August: Osage County. The play revolves around the disappearance of the patriarch, who leaves the pill-popping, emotionally stunted mother, to look toward her three daughters and her sister to help her sort out what has happened. This would make a wonderful production, though I wouldn't suggest it for high schools as there is explicit language, smoking, and much drug use. Good, balanced cast. Written on June 16, 2008 Summary: BEST PLAY OF 2008 How can a dramatic play about a dysfunctional family be so funny? Actually, dysfunctional isn't strong enough to describe the family in this play, which revolves around what happens when the members get together from various parts of the country after the family patriach disappears. A drug addict mother; three sisters and their mates who all have their secrets; an aunt, uncle, and cousin; and one stable outsider make up the characters. What follows is a series of accusations, insights, twists, turns, and believe it or not, lots of humor. Written on May 26, 2008 Summary: American Families Get a Bad Rap Sometimes "August, Osage County" is a lousy, off-putting title for a Broadway play. This is another family saga in which the family members get their kicks out of shredding and tearing each other apart. Once again the great American family firmly rooted in some regional hell devours itself. We've seen this done before, but wasn't it done better by Albee, Tennessee Williams, O'Neill, and Arthur Miller? It's the great pastime for American playwrights who don't have royalty and the gods to kick around as Shakespeare and the Greek dramatists did. Is it the American family that's so horribly dysfunctional or is it the playwrights with a perverse view of the world? Reading a play is absolutely no substitute for seeing a play. Evaluating a play without seeing a performance is like fishing without bait. You may catch something by sheer accident, but it'll be a huge task without the bait snare. If the play has heightened language as in Miller's "Death of a Salesman" it fares better with a reader. This play I had to read twice because it particularly needs and deserves a second and perhaps third reading. It's only then that you get to know who the characters really are, what makes them tick, and the humor, nuances and irony come across along with some of the real zingers in the dialogue. It has a number of characters that the reader gradually sorts out. On the page some emerge as stereotypes, others as caricatures on a first reading. A pill-popping mother, her three daughters and their husbands or boyfriends come in for some battering. Perhaps the more you read this play the more respect you'll have for it. The father says doing his laundry is "getting in the way of his drinking." Talking about the U.S. the father says, "Dissipation is actually much worse than cataclysm." Most plays reveal secrets as they go along, and this one has its share. It's a play with the venting of acquired family rage, spite, and nastiness. The mean-tempered, foul-mouthed mother Violet and daughter Barbara are champion gutter fighters who fight dirty and low and with venom in great confrontational scenes. Vicarious sado-masochism, anyone? As the American family is under attack again in this long three-act play, we see the rings of the proverbial onion being peeled away, like layers of human skin as truth-telling time and dredging up of the past take place. The play has a final ironic knockout punch. In this case the more familiarity readers have with the play the more respect they'll probably have for it. Clawed Back from the Dead Nine Lives Too Many The Daemon in Our Dreams The Rice Queen Spy  Written on May 13, 2008 Summary: Nice Wit and Spark, but Nothing Really New... With its colorful characters and snappy dialogue, "August: Osage County" makes for an unquestionably enjoyable night at the theatre as well as a fun read. It's a nice piece -- witty and sharp, but as a much-heralded 'masterpiece' it fell short for me. It was ultimately pretty derivative, with a story and characters that are basically a mashup of "Crimes of the Heart" with your basic Tennessee Williams melodrama, and with a dash of the bitter dust of Sam Shepard for flavor. The play itself moves along at a snappy pace but(especially when viewed onstage) is far too long, and could have been edited both in writing and performance to be much tighter. The three-act format feels indulgent and unnecessary. There are also several extraneous and completely unnecessary characters who directly contribute to the bloat, some of whom are total cliches. (The worst of these, a sleazy pedophile, is so clumsily telegraphed that he basically announces his motives within his first four lines of dialogue -- the audience actually groaned aloud when I saw it.) For me, for something theatrical to be a masterpiece, I want to feel like I'm reading or seeing something new -- a story or characters I have not seen before. And unfortunately there just wasn't anything that original about AOC -- we've all seen the dysfunctional screwball family drama a zillion times and this just didn't bring all that much new to the table for me. When I saw "Wit," for instance, I encountered a truly unique character. I heard language I had never heard before, thoughts I had never imagined. Same with "Angels in America" and heck, even "Prelude to a Kiss." But AOC? It's an enjoyable piece of theatre. On the up side, there are some wonderful monologues, some sharp observational humor and dialogue, and a lovely, truly haunting ending. But, while a perfectly good effort, I was surprised that it won the Pulitzer Prize -- I just didn't see anything that brought it to that level for me. It's a good play. But I don't think it's a play for the ages and suspect it will probably not be performed all that frequently decades from now. Time will tell. Written on April 27, 2008 Summary: Another view If some fans of this play want an interesting opposite view of Osage County take a look at Pawhuska Kid's Stuff by Stevie Payne. This is the Osage County I remember growing up there. Cheers...................... ;-)Pawhuska Kids' Stuff: Memories of Pawhuska and Friends |
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| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 2008-02-01 | 2007-08-01 | 2006-01-01 | 2007-05-10 | 2006-09-01 | 2008-04-01 |
| Media | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback |
| Number of pages | 152 | 112 | 436 | 144 | 112 | 96 |
| Ean | 9781559363303 | 9781559363129 | 9781559362665 | 9780802143075 | 9781559362900 | 9781559363259 |
| Book Isbn | 1559363304 | 1559363126 | 1559362669 | 0802143075 | 1559362901 | 1559363258 |
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