August: Osage County

Editorial

When: Previews 7.30pm; 13, 14 & 16 August, 2010
Season 17 August - 25 September, 2010
Where: Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay
Tickets: From $40
Bookings: Sydney Theatre Company, 02 9250 1777

August: Osage County is causing much excitement amongst local theatre fans. Playwright Letts is known for his 'killer' scripts and most critics are calling this his piece-de-resistance. Indeed, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this script and the production itself earned 5 Tony Awards on Broadway.

The 3 hour and 20 minute tragicomedy centres on the Weston family who unite at the family homestead in Oklahoma after the drunken loud-mouthed patriarch, Beverly West, disappears. His wife Violet is a pill popper with a vicious mouth that ultimately rips the family to shreds.

August: Osage County is an hilarious look at family dysfunction: it is chock full of drug taking, alcoholism, infidelity, lechery, swearing and suicide. It is entertaining, funny and incredibly touching - a play that you don't want to end.

Directed by award-winning Anna D. Shapiro, we are lucky to host the original Steppenwolf cast and crew including wonderful designer Todd Rosenthal and acting greats Deanna Dunagan, Rondi Reed and Amy Morton.

If there is only one play on your list this year, make sure it is this one!

Emma McGowan, Citysearch