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Reviews for August: Osage County
Wed, Mar 17, 2010 2:24 PM by Ryan Jones
Real all of the local reviews for Ordway's one week run of August: Osage County. More reviews will be added as they are published.
Twin Cities Daily Planet - "a fantastically entertaining night at the theater."
Examiner.com - 5 out of 5 stars. "Incendiary wit ignites a scorching drama of familial dysfunction"
Star Tribune - "Hurry to the Ordway Center, where [...] an extraordinary cast of actors are doing mesmerizing work in "August: Osage County," Tracy Letts' blistering, withering, hilarious and altogether mesmerizing family tragedy."
Pioneer Press - "Sometimes family ties bind. And sometimes they strangle. Dysfunction done right."
Broadway World - "a skillful blend of comedy and drama."
How Was the Show? - "Go see it."
Minneapolis Saint Paul Magazine - "the acting is top-notch, the set is wonderful, and the directing laudable."
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Additional reading:
MPR Interview with Estelle Parsons
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Get tickets to August: Osage County, running now through Sunday, March 21.
Posted in August: Osage County, Reviews
Q&A with Estelle Parsons, star of August: Osage County
Thu, Mar 11, 2010 4:37 PM by Ryan Jones
The Ordway is extremely excited to have August: Osage County here from March 16- 21. For those of you not familiar with the show it has won multiple Tony Awards as well as a Pulitzer Prize and stars the Academy Award winning actress Estelle Parsons as Violet Weston the pill popping, unsettled matriarch of the family. When Violet’s alcoholic husband goes missing her whole extended family reunites for a completely shocking and oddly funny reunion that makes anyone’s family seem completely normal in comparison. Estelle Parsons is probably best known for her hilarious role as Roseanne Conner’s mom, Beverly Harris on the sitcom Roseanne but Estelle is a well known theater actress too. Making her Broadway debut in 1956, Estelle calls theater her passion and was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2004. In the Q&A below Estelle discussed this dynamic role and a few other things about her iconic career as an actress.
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Q: After appearing in the show for almost a year on Broadway, why were you so eager to go on the road with August: Osage County?
A: I haven’t had much opportunity to tour, because I was always bringing up kids. I went on the road for three months with Miss Margarida’s Way, but most of the time when I got an offer to go on the road or go to London, I couldn’t go. But I’ve always loved the idea of touring: I have this old dream of being in vaudeville.
And there are all kinds of different audiences out there. I learned that from doing summer stock. Audiences are always a learning opportunity.
Q: Actors always say that each audience has a certain personality. Do you find that affects your performance?
A: Absolutely, particularly with this play, where the audience is so dynamic and so vocal in every way – moaning, groaning, laughing, crying. The audience is really the third essential part. They’re not just sitting on their hands listening. They’re incredible and they’re always different, and as we go from city to city, I’m sure they’re going to be very different in different places.
Q: How did you wind up doing the role on Broadway?
A: Rondi Reed [who originated the role of Mattie Fae Aiken, Violet’s sister] and Laurie Metcalf, both of whom belong to Steppenwolf, are friends. I’ve worked with both of them at Steppenwolf, and with Laurie on Roseanne. We were out one night, and they said, “Deanna’s leaving. You should play that part.” I had seen the play a couple of weeks before, and I said, “What are you talking about?” And they said, “Ever since we read this play, we thought you would be perfect for the part.” And of course I’m still wondering why they thought that. Anyway, after a few days, I called Rondi and told her I was interested. She said, “Okay, I’ll put it in motion.” And she did. I went to meet the director, and they hired me.
Q: Did you audition?
A: I did. I always prefer to audition, because very often when you’re saying the words out loud, you really can tell whether you want to do a play or not. The audition was the dining room scene, which is really, really tough. So I thought, “Let me work on this for awhile, and see if this is something I really want to be up there doing.” The more I worked on it, the more I loved it. And then when I auditioned, it just came alive, like whoosh. I thought it was wonderful.
Q: You’ve said that you didn’t go into the play with the intention of making the role your own. Could you elaborate?
A: The play was a very big hit, Tracy Letts won the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award, and Deanna and Rondi also won Tonys. Quite aside from the prizes, I think that if something is a hit, then the hit should be maintained. The play wasn’t broken, so I didn’t see the need to go in there and fix it. I thought my job was to replace what was there, to do what is there. I had seen Deanna do the role, and I’ve spent my whole adult life looking very seriously and concentratedly at actors. So I just felt I was her doing the role. People laugh at me when I say that, because I’m nothing like her. But I don’t usually try to put my personal stamp on things. I try to play the play the way it’s written.
Q: What do you think of Violet? Do you like her?
A: I think she’s a wonderful person who went astray. I have sympathy for her. Do I like her as a person? It’s hard to know what’s underneath all that. I think she is basically a colder person than I am, and it’s been very exciting to work on that. But I do love her. I think she was a very smart, sensitive woman who was deeply abused as a child, and consequently bears the scars. Who knows what would happen to people if they didn’t have the background they have.
Q: Deanna Dunagan said that one of the reasons she left the Broadway production and took time off before doing the play in London, was because she was exhausted. Does the role affect you physically and/or emotionally?
A: It’s a very vigorous role, but I’m used to doing musicals and I’m used to doing very vigorous stuff. I wouldn’t say I’m exhausted by it. But I do think that it takes up your whole life.
Q: Everyone marvels at how you go up and down those stairs. How do you stay in shape?
A: I’ve been very physically active all my life. Dance lessons, yoga, running, hiking. I would have loved to have been a skier or a tennis player if I weren’t an actor. I run or swim or go to the gym every day, and also do yoga. I started doing weights when I got into my 60s, and have had a lot of trainers. When you get older, your strength dissipates very quickly. It probably starts in your 60s, but when you get into your 70s, if you don’t walk a mile for a couple of weeks, pretty soon it’s hard work to walk a mile. So I’ve always kept up with it, not because I thought it would be particularly helpful in my work – though I do think actors should be extraordinarily self-aware physically – I just can’t help myself. My husband is like that too. That’s our lifestyle, which came in handy when I started this show.
Q: How did the role come about in Bonnie and Clyde?
A: In 1966, I was doing the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge, MA. I had seen Arthur Penn’s movies, and I wanted to work for him. I managed to get an interview with him for The Skin of Our Teeth, which he was directing that summer in Stockbridge, and he hired me. And working with him, I suddenly knew that I was in the right profession. I was [almost] 40 by that time, so I’d been in it a long time. But I always used to think, “Am I in the right profession? Maybe I should have kept on at law school, or maybe I should try something else.” But working for Arthur Penn, I realized that I was in the right place and I should be doing what I do, and how wonderful it is when I can have that kind of experience on the stage.
And then he asked me to do Bonnie and Clyde. I was just about to move to San Francisco and join a rep company, which I’d always wanted to do. And the day after he asked me to read the script, I got a phone call telling me that the funding for the rep company had fallen through. So we weren’t going. I called Arthur and I read the script, and I thought, “Why is he offering this to me?” I’m really not too interested in movies. But the more I read it, I realized it was an incredible part. And I really was excited to work with Arthur again.
Q: Did the Academy Award affect your career?
A: It did in that I could have had a lot of movie success, which I wasn’t really interested in. Looking back on it, I think that’s kind of too bad. Sam Cohn was my agent, and we were getting all these really good offers. But they conflicted with work I was doing onstage, things that really interested me. I did a few movies, but I did them when I was on vacation from a theater job. My life just wasn’t about movies: I don’t think I ever chose a movie job over a theater job. I started in cabaret. I did Jerry Herman’s first revue in a club, and two revues of Julius Monk’s Upstairs at the Downstairs. And I had my own nightclub act. Like I said, I love vaudeville. I’ve always been interested in that kind of pure entertaining. I love to entertain people. I love to hear them laugh. I love the silences, when they don’t know what’s going on – though I must say that the silences in this play kind of scare me sometimes. I think, “My God, they’re so quiet, and they’re watching every move I make.”
Q: Well, you are – she is – very frightening.
A: That’s true. She’s a great, great character. I don’t fool myself that it’s me. I know it’s me and the character. But if you don’t have a great, sound, wonderful character that reaches audiences, you can’t do it on your own.
Q: Millions of people know you from Roseanne. It was taped in front of an audience. Was the experience similar to doing a play?
A: No. The audience was there, but they were manipulated – laugh now, applaud now. So it’s not like a theater audience. It’s a completely different experience. You don’t have that long with a script. A good play is so dense that it takes you three or four weeks to figure out what you’re talking about. That’s never true in films and TV, which is cool because you’ve got to get up and do them, and there’s a certain fun in that – but not enough to make me want to do it instead of theater. It’s hard work in the theater. Eight shows a week of anything is hard work, and you give your life to it.
Q: Your character on Roseanne was allowed to develop over time, which must have been interesting.
A: Rosie seemed to love my work. She was always laughing at me. I think she was thinking up all kinds of crazy things to do to that poor mother. She was a lot of fun. We had a great time on that show.
Posted in August: Osage County, Behind the Scenes
This blog is a group effort by Ordway staff, actors, artists, musicians, dancers and all those involved in the creative process of performances, programs and events at the Ordway to provide a behind the scenes look at what happens onstage, backstage and in support of the work presented at the Ordway. We also hope to discuss pertinent topics in our industry.
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