Ghost Light Monday -- August: Osage County

With all the Tony and Pulitzer hoopla surrounding the Broadway production of August: Osage County coming out of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater Company, I took myself over to my favorite book emporium to buy a copy of the script, which has been published by the Theater Communications Group.

It brought me back to my theater days in college, reading scripts for study. It also brought me back to my college days because I had a course looking at the plays of Sam Shepard. Tracy Letts's Osage County falls in line with some of Shepard's later works, particularly Buried Child. I'm certainly not the first to point out this similarity.

Perhaps it is the differences from Shepard that kept Osage interesting. Letts's characters are more verbose than Shepard's, and while they are equally venomous, the slurs in Osage are more distilled--not necessarily less potent, but boiled down to their essence, usually to humorous effect. Letts's Weston family is also smarter and more well-read (or at least well-quoted). I was also reminded of some of Lanford Wilson's family dramas; while less sentimental then Wilson, the quirkiness of some of the Weston family may be descended from Fifth of July.

For those not familiar with the work of Steppenwolf, they are an ensemble company with a long history of success in plays by both Wilson and Shepard. Early company productions of Hot l Baltimore, True West and Buried Child received wide notice, and Buried Child was transferred to New York. Acclaim for Gary Sinise, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, and Joan Allen (all early Steppenwolf ensemble members) brought these actors to the national forefront.

With Letts, the company has found a Chicago-based playwright, whose knowledge of the Steppenwolf style and strengths of the ensemble members can focus a new generation of the company and help shepherd Steppenwolf through its third decade.