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| August: Osage County | 
 enlarge | Author: Tracy Letts
Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $7.72
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New (42) Used (12) from $7.72
Avg. Customer Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 3573
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 152
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4
ISBN: 1559363304
Dewey Decimal Number: 812.6
EAN: 9781559363303
ASIN: 1559363304
Publication Date: February 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New and Factory Sealed Item Fast Shipping
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| Customer Reviews:
 Nice Wit and Spark, but Nothing Really New... May 13, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
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.
 "Thank God we can't tell the future. We'd never get out of bed." June 27, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
A dilapidated, one hundred year-old farmhouse on the plains outside Tulsa has been the home of the Weston family for generations, and Beverly Weston, the family patriarch, has long found refuge in alcohol. His termagant wife Violet takes pills, whatever pills she can lay hands on, and the two have little in common and have not really communicated for years. Bev, who once published a collection of poetry, now spends time quoting T. S. Eliot, and Eliot's line that "Life is very long..." serves as a motto for Bev in his life. Bev's Prologue sets the tone for the play, and when Act One begins, Bev has disappeared. The family has gathered to support each other while they await news on his whereabouts.
A dysfunctional family which represents just about every problem a family can have, the Westons who have gathered are the three daughters of Bev and Violet, along with Violet's sister Mattie Fay, her husband, and adult son. Barbara, at forty-six the eldest of the Westons' children, has arrived with her husband and precocious fourteen-year-old daughter. Ivy Weston, age forty-four, is unmarried, constantly resisting her mother's meddlesome probing and her cruel remarks about catching a man. Karen Weston, the youngest, at forty, has brought her fifty-year-old fiance with her. In the course of the three hours or more of this play, the family, overwhelmed by the selfish mean-spiritedness Violet, reveals and/or deals with their self-destructive behavior on all levels--from addictions, unhappy marriages, and infidelity, to sadism, suicide, pedophilia, and even incest.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2008, Tracy Letts deals with modern sensibilities but writes in the old-fashioned tradition of Long Day's Journey Into Night, Death of a Salesman (Broadway Theatre Archive), and even Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Big, broad, and complex in its development of the family dynamics, the play maintains a surprising level of black humor, despite the level of misery within this family.
As the action reaches its climax, and the various characters must decide how they will deal with the rest of their lives, the audience sees that the decisions that are made are the only ones that can be made, given the nature of these particular people and their limitations. It would be a mistake to say that the problems are "resolved," but they are, at least, "settled" for the audience. An intense and powerful drama with enough humor to keep the action from overwhelming the audience, August: Osage County is a memorable modern day addition to the tradition of Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams. n Mary Whipple
Man from Nebraska: A Play
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Killer Joe, a Play
Biography - Letts, Tracy (1965-): An article from: Contemporary Authors Online
AOC is the best new play in years! April 6, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
August: Osage County is the best new American play I have seen in years. I saw the production on Broadway with the original cast and I was blown away! The characters are so raw and the humor and heartache so biting. I loved every minute of it and the three hours-plus zipped by in a flash. Anyone who did not like this show has to have their head examined or perhaps they are pretentious blow-hards...My husband and I found it to be absolutely riveting. We would see it again in a heartbeat. And I bought the script just so I could read it and absorb whatever may have been lost during the performance. I highly recommend this show and this script.
Cliche June 26, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
By now, the over-the-top dysfunctional family is almost a cliche, but this is an apt vehicle for many of the tired characterizations in this play: the "wiser-than-all" native American who manages to stand above all the muck; the dumb sister with the sleezeball latest boyfriend; the pot-smoking teen; the pretentious academic who is having an affair with a student.
While the play was entertaining, it was more melodrama than drama. I left thinking, "What was the point of this?" To be fair, I do think I came up with an answer. I believe the playwright is asking the question, "What does 'family' mean?" The play explores some answers to that.
I do not think this play was worthy of a Pulitzer prize or the $102 ticket price that I paid to see it. As I mentioned, it was entertaining, but it's not a play that I'll remember for years to come.
 I'm missing something here June 30, 2008
4 out of 7 found this review helpful
I follow the goings-on on Broadway fairly closely, attend theater regularly in Los Angeles, and have recently started buying scripts of the latest plays - especially Tony and Pulitzer Prize winners. I am not particularly educated when it comes to the structure or the art of playwrighting. But I know when I find something inspiring and uplifting. And I must be missing something here. I would imagine the performances of the recent Broadway cast of this play were outstanding, etc. But I somehow fail to see how 3 hours plus of family members with all kinds of crazy problems cussing at each other is inspiring. This play, even though very different in style and content, left me feeling much like how I felt after recently sitting through "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff" - what's the point? OK, I'm shallow, but I think there are better things to spend one's energy and focus on.
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