Generic Theater to Present AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY, 4/18-5/4

By: Mar. 24, 2014
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April 18 through May 4, 2014, Generic Theater will perform the Pulitzer and Tony winning tragicomedy August: Osage County, by Tracy Letts, at The Players' Ring, 105 Marcy Street, Portsmouth NH. The playwright quotes Robert Penn Warren to describe his play: "The good old family reunion . . . is very much like diving into the octopus tank."

The recently released movie based on the play branches out into the bright and beautiful Oklahoma countryside, but Letts's play transpires in a hot, dark, cramped house, where during one Oklahoma August, the large Weston family unexpectedly reunites. They gather to find out where, and maybe why, paterfamilias Beverly Weston, a lapsed poet, has suddenly decamped.

With Beverly's pill-popping and cancer-afflicted wife leading off an avalanche of repressed hurts and grudges, the homestead implodes under the weight of unwanted truths revealed. In Beverly and Violet Weston's family, love has become cloaked with irony. Every member suffers from "the Plains,"-a condition much like the Blues. Alan Huisman directs this major new play, which unflinchingly-and uproariously-exposes the dark side of the American family.

Sanford Farrier and Carol Davenport portray Beverly and Violet Weston. The remaining familial couples are played by Peggi McCarthy and Cary Wendell, Helen Brock and John Tullgren, Laurie Torosian and Michael Stailey, Megan Davenport Karas, and Joseph Bodnar. Samantha Bagdon plays granddaughter Jean; Liz Locke plays Johnna, the housekeeper; and Jeff Whittum plays Sheriff Deon Gilbeau.

Show times are 8pm Fridays and Saturdays, 7pm Sundays April 20 and 27th, closing with a 2pm matinee Sunday May 4. Tickets cost $12 - 15 (seniors, students, and Players' Ring members receive discounts). Reserve by calling 603-436-8123 or visiting www.playersring.org.



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