August Osage County
Memphis musical fans despair! I have no comfort for you this week. (Unless you want to take a quick trip to DeSoto County to catch the closing weekend of Camelot at DFT). On the other hand, tragedy and comedy lovers have some great choices.
August: Osage County has a bit of everything for everybody: marital infidelity, incest, child molestation, Eric Clapton records, fibs, lies, falsehoods, etc. But in spite of the unsavory ingredients, this dish comes together like apple pie — crusty, sweet at the center, and full of spice.
Set in Oklahoma during a blazing hot summer just before and after the drowning suicide of the Weston family patriarch, Tracy Letts’ Pulitzer-winning drama August: Osage County plays out like a middle-class echo of one of Sam Shepard’s savage family plays with a pinch of King Lear folded in. Letts’ breezy dialogue and ability to find screwball humor and slapstick in dark and realistic events makes him unique among playwrights.
Bill Simmers
Stupid Fucking Bird
Mixing clever adaptation with bits of improv Aaron Posner’s Stupid Fucking Bird has earned a reputation for transcending its title profanity to pay reasonable tribute to Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull.
Love? Art? Adulthood? — IT’S ALL SO DISAPPOINTING. And sometimes, it’s awfully funny.
August: Osage County, Jitney, and Stupid F**king Bird: Weekend Theater Roundup
August Wilson’s rarely produced work, Jitney, is a play that merits mass-revival. Written before Uber was either a noun or a verb, the play looks into the lives of gypsy cab drivers in in Pittsburgh’s Hill district, where proper taxis refused to travel. It’s a story about life in America’s alternative economy, legacy, and what a struggle it can be to hold on to anything, let alone pass it down.
This script probably merits mass revival. Definitely worth a peek. 
