Baffled

I felt the same way as I left the theatre last night. It was an odd mixture of disappointment after all the hype (oh why oh why haven't I learned by now about "le hype"?), a sense of despair at how much the theatre has become a place where perfectly acceptable scripts for an HBO or TNT miniseries have taken root (can anyone say "Rabbit Hole"?) and an affirmation of how the long arm of the decay of what used to make places like Steppenwolf special continues to reach out into the broader theatrical world.

August: Osage County was by no means bad. Solid production values, solid acting - for sure. But THIS is supposed to be the next GREAT AMERICAN PLAY. Which leads me to think - what the hell happened to the great American play? Tracy Letts covers his bases for sure - the pill popping monster mother (Long Days Journey - check), the caustic toxic family (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - check), the outing of secrets long held (name any play from the 1950s - check) - but this pastiche held no subtlety, no poetry for me. It felt like some odd amalgamation of sitcom and soap opera all dressed up in Eugene O'Neill's tattered smoking jacket. A potboiler without Bette Davis and Anne Baxter. Sigh.