Responses to August: Osage County
Posted by Deanna Dunagan on 7/12/2007
Audience response to our show has been remarkable, like nothing I have ever experienced in thirty-some-odd years on stage. People of all ages, from teens to the quite elderly, wait outside the theater to shake our hands and thank us for the performance. Many say it was the shortest three and a half hours they’ve ever experienced. One was overheard to say, exaggerating a little perhaps, that it was shorter than a 15 minute one-act she had seen. After the Saturday matinee last week, a man approached me, tears running down his face, to say that it had been years since he had seen this kind of theater, the kind that first made him fall in love with Steppenwolf. Company member Rondi Reed, who plays my sister (and who directed me in Stepping Out, my first Steppenwolf show in 1988) said of the opening night performance that it was “like being at a Blackhawks hockey game.” Perhaps my favorite remark was from Alexandra Billings, noted Chicago performer, now teaching at the Steppenwolf school, who said it was like “climbing into a Picasso.”
The fact is, I have not really recovered from our final push to get this remarkable piece up there for public viewing; and I find myself playing catch up, attempting to take care of all the mundane and necessary things one needs just to live — laundry, groceries, house cleaning, doctor’s appointments, hair-cuts, e-mail — or as Tracy, more poetically, has Beverly say in the Prologue, the “paying of bills, purchase of goods, cleaning of clothes or carpets or crappers.” Just the idea that we have two full days of daylight without rehearsing or performing is enough to make me lightheaded with joy.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being in this play. There is nothing I would rather be doing, nowhere I would rather be. I LOVE my fellow actors and the crew. I will sorely miss seeing Anna and Tracy every day. But the relief from both the anxiety before each entrance and the responsibility, the stress of bringing this great new play to life for a couple of days is intoxicating.
Which reminds me: this is a very tough show to perform. For everyone. You have to bring your A Game every night, eight shows a week, five a weekend. There is no time or energy for much of a social life. To paraphrase again from the Prologue, I find this play is “getting in the way of my drinking.” Seriously, I enjoy a glass of wine with my evening meal, or if I’m performing, after the show, but with this one I dare not drink at all. Alcohol is dehydrating, bad for the vocal cords, and even worse for me because I am slightly allergic to it. Even conversation, which as a Gemini I greatly enjoy, in person or on the phone, has to be greatly curtailed. My reward every night after the show is a large bowl of fresh fruit with yogurt (supposed to enhance the immune system) and a replay of that days Cubs game. A great baseball game can also be a work of art. Unfortunately, the Cubs haven’t crafted many recently. On the other hand, it appears, from the response we’ve received, that Tracy and the rest of us, the Steppenwolf team, have created a masterpiece.
July 12th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Deanna, what you and the entire cast and crew have done with this production is absolutely remarkable. I saw it last night, and it was easily one of the best pieces of theatre I have E V E R seen.
I am coming back.
I have to.
I need to see this again.
And when I do I’ll be waiting at the stage door with a Cubs re-cap for that day, in case you’re interested.
(ps. 4.5 games back! not bad.)
July 12th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
visiting from Toronto last weekend - I saw the Saturday matinee
WOW .. 3 1/2 hours of riveting theatre … staggering achievement
congratulations everyone …
July 14th, 2007 at 6:16 pm
Staggering, indeed. Your performance in this play is a once-in-a-lifetime treat for each and every audience member. As exhausting as it must be, it must be exhilarating as well. I know I was hardly able to sleep after seeing it I ws so energized, my brain was firing on all cylinders and my heart was racing. I have no idea how you get through 8 shows a week - but thank you for doing so! It is a perfect match of role to actor, writer to director, and entire production to entire cast and crew. By far one of the best plays I’ve ever seen.
I’d love to know what magical hex you put on all of us in the audience to make 3 1/2 hours seem more like 30 minutes. I sense the work of a hidden Harry Potter in the lobby!
I encourage anyone who has not seen this show to RUN to the theatre as fast as you can. This is one that will be talked about for years and you don’t want to be that 1 person who didn’t witness the magic. Even if it is done again, and it will be done again and again, if it doesn’t have all the magical elements of this production including every single member of the cast, it just won’t be quite the same. Great, but not Jump-To-Your-Feet-Realizing-How-Lucky-You-Were-to-be-There-Fantastic. RUN I tell you!
July 17th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Deanna — the Cubs have won 4 straight! Must be thanks to all of your hard work!
July 17th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
I love the play. I saw it twice in previews, a third time after it opened. I wouldn’t be surprised if I go back for a fourth. I’m telling everyone I meet to go see it.
I grew up in a big extended family in the Midwest (and a Royals fan at that.) I thought Letts really hit it spot on.
Congrats to the cast and crew.
July 18th, 2007 at 1:08 am
I am certainly not alone, from my fellow audience members’ reactions, in considering this some of the best theater I’ve seen in Chicago (or anywhere else). From the writing, to the acting, to the set design, you’ve nailed it on all cylinders with this one!
July 21st, 2007 at 9:32 am
Having been told yesterday by Steppenwolf powers-that-be to, ‘do the work’ and quit whining about not getting into The School At Steppenwolf (for the second time in a row) because I am too old…well, I never!
Work? Work? Do the work? Work was being done last night on the Steppenwolf Stage to my chagrin and respect. ‘The Work’ seems an esoteric little phrase of Catch-22 significance in that, how is the work done? Get a degree from Northwestern? (too old) Get accepted to Actors Studio in New York first, then apply to Steppenwolf? Be in a Broadway Show? Do Shakespeare? I DO do ‘the work’, but as all actors seem to find themselves in the same boat as me, amature person that I am, we mostly scrounge, like junkyard dogs, for rolls in a play to ‘work’ on!
Now that’s off my chest. I was in Row B Seat 11 for last night’s performance. It is a fine seat. Sat next to a man in a yellow sailing slicker. He was a little on the over weight side. I let him have my right arm rest. He had on a pinky ring, and discussed with some women he knew in the row behind us, the chicken they should have returned at dinner. The chicken was awful. Didn’t you think the chicken was awful? I zoned out into the Playbill, so I can’t tell you how that conversation ended.
There was a young woman ushering last night. She stood at the front of the left center isle guarding the stage, a bundle of Playbills in hand. I grilled her while I waited for the curtain to rise. She’s a North Carolinian acting student taking her summer to live in Chicago and see Chicago Theater. I questioned whether or not there was enough of it to keep her stimulated. “Hm.” she replied.
After my yellow slicker seatmate was done talking to his friends about chicken, he turned to me and asked, “What do you think of the set?” I said, “It seems haunted, like the farmhouse in Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’.”
I held my breath every time Violet came stumbling, hunchbacked down those steep and treacherous stairs!
“What brought you to the theater this evening?” another question from yellow slicker man.
“I wasn’t going to bother,” said I. “But read the Chris Jones review in Friday’s paper, and was seduced by his honesty. Yes, I believe that Steppenwolf has become a little colorless, a bit neutral and clique-ish. I have been wishing, for some time now, to see some of the other headshot ensemble members grace Step’s Stage instead of the same ole-same-ole…over and over and over. Geesh!” I said.
“Me too.” said yellow slicker. “I was sucked in by Mr. Jones’ article though. It convinced me I might be missing something if I didn’t attend.”
“Me too.” said I.
Lights dimmed curtain up. Well, there’s no curtain - lights up.
I had a difficult time hearing the first monologue to Indian woman.
This play is Chekov on crack!
The heat reminded me of Tennessee Williams. Stella! Stella!
The time pretty much flew, except for a few moments when actors, in conversation one on one, which was quite a lot in this play, lost focus, or lost the carrot they were chewing, or got a little too rambunctious with the dialogue.
I wish Amy Morton would lose control more often!
I wish Marian Mayberry would have continued her manic wild upstaging through out!
I love Kimberly Guerrero’s softly intense performance.
Ms. Johnstin has a career ahead of her on the stage, if she so chooses.
Rondi Reed is a dream come true actress.
Ian Bardord was hilarious.
Rich Snyder what a fun part!
Sally Murphy does not look 44!
Jeff Perry’s glasses were cool.
Francis Guinan and the ‘meat’ family eating scene was fun!
Dennis Letts need to speak up right away, and stay focused!
Deanna Dunagan was the glue holding the druggy, boozed play together! SHE IS INCREDIBLE. Her voice is her best asset!
“All in all,” I said to yellow slicker, “I feel the actors are having a lot of fun on stage. How they keep it up for three plus hours every night, is a tribute to professionalism and good health habits (I assume). The fun, fun, fun, rollicking frolicking honest madness was spectacular.”
Yellow slicker asked, “Yes, but are YOU having fun?”
“Yep, I sure am!” I enthusiastically exclaimed.
Mr. Letts is a genius.
Mr. Letts is a genius.
Cancer of the mouth! What metaphor! Yes, Violet had cancer of the mouth. Her character moved toxically through a series of horrendous speeches into the arms of Native America – the helpless child she so needed to be! Wow.
So, Mr. Letts’ intent, I think, was to exposé America as a flat rather barren plain, the interior of American Gothic, the mouths of madness and honesty…truth be told..America will die of an interior cancerous disease..from within. Do not fear Nuclear Holocaust, fear something much worse!
Anyway, I’m thinking about loving family, and how crucial human connections are. We are pack animals. There’s room for alphas and betas and so on and so forth…
Now I’ve run out of steam. But thanks a bunch Steppenwolf Theater for a great evening at the theeah-tah!