A-LISTS theatre by lisa lipsey
“THE MOST EXCITING NEW AMERICAN PLAY IN YEARS” COMES TO THE OLD GLOBE San Diego’s Old Globe and Obie Award-winning Director Sam Gold brings us Tracy Letts’ dark comedy August: Osage
County, one of the most acclaimed plays of the last decade. It won the 2008 Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and has drawn comparisons to the work of great American Dramatists Eugene O’Neill, Sam Shepard and Tennessee Williams. The Rage Monthly caught up with Gold to learn more about this upcoming show at The Globe.
When did you first read the script or see the play August: Osage County? What was your reaction to it? I saw the final dress rehearsal on Broadway. I did not read it until Lou Spisto, The Old
Globe’s Executive Producer, asked me to direct it here. Seeing it live it blew me away. It was three and a half hours that went by in a second. I felt jealousy to not be involved, it is a work that is so ambitious and so great for actors and very rare in the American theatre. Tell me about the play’s plot line. It’s the story of the Weston Family in Tushka, Oklahoma. Due to a tragedy, the fam-
ily all comes together in their childhood home. In specifics, you are seeing a very well drawn family under the pressures of a tough personal moment, a moment that will make them seem familiar, like every family. It has reverberations on so many levels; it reflects in a thousand different directions. How involved were you in the casting of this play? Samantha Barrie did the casting and she is excellent, we have worked long and hard
to bring this family together. I have admired the actors in this show for a long time and I have known many of them a long time. But I have never worked with any of them before; we’re all meeting over material and becoming a family over the material. What’s it like to bring the play to life? We just finished our second week of rehearsals, so we’re exactly half way. This is one of those plays that is a feast for actors; they light up from the material, it is exhausting and exhilarating. We dove into the play in a veracious way—fast and hard; at the end of the day no one wants to stop. We are so inside the experience; from moment to moment, the play is truthful, authentic, exciting, entertaining. It keeps you wrapped up in it. This is set in modern times; will it feel like 2011 or more like 1995? It was written in 2008, it will not feel anything other than contemporary. There is
mention of a mortgage crisis; which places it in time in an interesting, fortune teller way because that is happening right now. Interesting. If audience members wanted to see a play, movie or book in a similar vein to August:
Osage County, what would you recommend? The great American dramatists: Eugene O’Neil, Edward Albee, Arthur Miller. They
created visions of America on the macroscopic scale and dealt with family issues on a microscopic scale. The drama affecting the family reflects the drama faced by America. Tell me about the work you did prior to winning an Obie. It was a very productive and exciting time working with Annie Baker on Circle Mirror
Transformation (Playwrights Horizons) and The Aliens (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater). We found that we shared vocabulary and tastes; it was a smooth and exciting col- laboration. To see it recognized is a very grounding experience. When things go right, people can tell and people respond to it, giving you something to aim for in future collaborations. If someone gave you carte blanche freedom to direct any play, which play would you choose? Pet projects of mine, things I’ve had in my mind for ten years, things I have been dying
to do. A few of those things have fallen into place, in a row. This year I get to direct Ibsen & Chekov plays with their realism and sub-textual acting; late 19th-century dramas. Also John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, it has real influence, danger and rage; it taps into being young. This is all coming together, for me, at a very serendipitous time. Would you say dark comedy is your niche as a director? Not so much dark comedy, but I’m looking for depth of character. I am really into
plays that give actors a meal, where they get to mime tough and real circumstances. The darker areas of the heart and the soul are meatier. I also look at the play’s sense of humor, I wouldn’t do it if it didn’t have a sense of humor.
AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY Runs May 7 to June 12 at the Old Globe Theatre. For tickets and more information call 619.234.5623.
Join us Friday, May 27 for OUT AT THE GLOBE: An evening for LGBT theater lovers with a hosted wine and martini bar, appetizers and door prizes. Visit
theoldglobe.org/events for more details.
“We dove into the play in a veracious way—fast and hard; at the end of the day no one wants to stop. We are so inside the experience; from moment to moment, the play is truthful, authentic, exciting, entertaining. It keeps you wrapped up in it.
20 RAGE monthly | MAY 2011 ”
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