I have been a fan of August: Osage County by Tracy Letts since I saw it in New York in 2008 with many of the original Steppenwolf cast. I caught it again in San Francisco, and then three more times at OSF. It’s a dream come true to see a reading of this electrifying play come to life on RTC’s stage with a this magnificent ensemble of actors who are directed by the extraordinary Henry Woronicz. I’m delighted you are here.
Our creative pursuits continues when, from July 17–August 4, Dan Donohue and Ray Porter portray extras on a Hollywood film set in rural Ireland in Stones in His Pockets. In the course of this play, written by Marie Jones and directed by John Plumpis, Donohue and Porter also portray thirteen other characters in a hilarious clash of cultures that pits gritty reality against Hollywood endings.
On September 14 and 15, Shakespeare scholar and actor Barry Kraft will lead sessions on Macbeth and Much Ado About Nothing. The event will be held at a private home in Ashland, and attendees can participate in these sessions in person or via Zoom or receive them as videos. Each day will cover new material about both plays.
Rounding out our season, from October 23–November 10, RTC will present Gidion’s Knot, written by Johnna Adams, featuring Domenique Lozano and Erica Sullivan, and directed by Terri McMahon. Gidion’s Knot explores a mother and a teacher’s experience of coping with unimaginable sorrow and discovers the truth behind their shared grief. This production promises to be powerful, poignant, and heart-rendering.
Thank you for joining us on this splendid new journey.
Lights up!
Jessica Sage, Artistic Director, Rogue Theater Company
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Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
~ T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
Tracy Lett’s searing play August: Osage County, springs from a long lineage of American family dramas. From Eugene O’Neill to Arthur Miller to Tennessee Williams to Edward Albee to August Wilson and others, the vast and unendingly varied dynamics of the American family has provided an immense reservoir through which to mine these seminal and inescapable explorations of our most intimate relations.
Like many of the works from the playwrights above, August: Osage County reflects a particular family, with a particular history, at a particular moment in America. Hopefully, it may not reflect our own families, or the choices we might make in dealing with a fiery legacy of infighting or abuse or simply not paying attention to those with whom we live—though Letts himself once remarked that “everybody has a great big fucked up family. And if they say they don’t, they’re lying”. But these tight, taut, neglected relationships and lost hopes are at the very least forces that many of us have come to recognize in our own families, in one way or another. With love and compassion and time, we may be blessed to emerge from this dark wood into a healthier and more bountiful outcome. But the Westons of Osage County are brawlers, egotists, deniers, and escape artists. They have made choices—or choices have been them made for them—that long ago set them on a path of self-destruction and repetitive, ever constrictive options. The humor to be found in their sharp and lacerating self-awareness may not be their only saving grace, but it may be all that keeps them alive and surviving and pushing on. And for some, it may be their only hope of escaping the shadow that falls between the idea of family and the reality of their lives.
Henry Woronicz, Director, August: Osage County
