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Probably the greatest of the ‘dinner party plays’ of the ’00s, Tracy Letts’ August: Osage Country is a seriously heavyweight piece of American drama that follows the addled Weston family as they rip each other to shreds over the course of several eventful weeks.
And as plays from 2007 go, it’s pretty well known thanks to the hit 2013 film adaptation. A stonkingly stacked cast was led by Meryl Streep as toxic matriarch Violet Weston, with the likes of Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor and Benedict Cumberbatch in support.
August: Osage Country has only actually had a single London production: at the National Theatre, in 2008, and that was itself a transfer of the previous year’s US premiere, running for just a couple of months. Part of the reason is that this thing is BIG – it requires a pretty enormous cast, and the OG production ran at three-and-a-half hours.
But next year it’ll receive its first UK revival – and indeed, first production to originate in the UK – as the great Lesley Manville steps into the role of Violet, with Anna Maxwell Martin as Barbara Fordham, Violet’s controlling eldest daughter. There are loads of great roles in this play, so while we should probably assume they’re the extent of the slebs, we can assume we’ll be in for a treat in terms of further casting.
August: Osage County is at the Noël Coward Theatre, Jan 18-Apr 10 2027.
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