August: Osage County

By Tracy Letts

 

Product Description

 

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.

 

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2035 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 152 pages

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Tracy Letts is the author of Killer Joe, Bug and Man From Nebraska, which was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. He is a member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where August: Osage County premiered.

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Customer Reviews

great drama is still alive
this is a wonderful evening of theatre
one that will stand the test of time as so many greats of the past have done (i.e. the glass menagerie, who’s afraid of virginia wolffe and so many others)
you will reread this over and over just to absorb the piece for it’s many abilities it conveys.
hollywood should buying up the rights to this asap and if their is a god miss jane fonda will be playing the mother. what a role!
congratulation’s mr. letts for this great work of art.

When our desire for control gets out of control…
“August: Osage County” is a long, absorbing, tragic and terrifying play, masterfully conceived and exciting to read. It is the chronicle of how an extended family deals with the disappearance of its patriarch, Beverly Weston, a poet whose presence radiated calm and warmth to everyone else in the Weston clan. As the Westons gather to await news and to support Beverly’s wife, Violet, they begin to face their own fears and problems and they do not like what they see. Violet seems to take the disappearance the hardest: she immediately intensifies her embarrassing habit of popping pills and thus spews insults and truths that make everyone uncomfortable. But others have their own issues. Barbara, Beverly’s daughter, is separating from her husband, Bill. Ivy, another one of Beverly’s daughters, has finally found a man but is unsure what the rest of the family will think. And Karen, the third daughter, has a fiancé who may not be as faithful as she thinks. As the Westons face the reality of Beverly’s disappearance and their other problems intensify, each member of the family tries obsessively to obtain some sort of harmony. But their need for control, for some tidiness and comfort in their own souls, leads them to do awful things. And this sad truth also plays a part in Beverly’s disappearance. In the end, only the calm Native American housekeeper, Johnna, reigns. But this does not ruin the story, for it almost seems doomed from the start. It’s a fascinating (and sobering) ride to see these Westons self-destruct.