The Alliance Theater's production of Tracy Letts' "August: Osage County" engaged me completely. I understood why the play's Broadway production caused a sensation, with critics and audience members extolling it as a new great American play. Yet, the day after, I had misgivings about whether "August: Osaage County" could be compared with "A Streetcar Named Desire" or "An Iceman Cometh."
In retrospect, the play's sensational elements of incest, drug addiction, alcoholism, etc. seemed overwrought and gratuitous. Despite a number of strong scenes, the play's language often sounded ordinary, cliched. The character's words didn't reach those higher levels of poetry associated with the greatest theater. The torments and demons failed to rise into the realms of the highest tragedy.
Perhaps time, and newer productions will prove me wrong. The Alliance production was an afterrnoon of fine theater, but after I day of reflection, I found myself unconvinced that the play could stand among the greatest works of the theater.
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