Review Roundup: What Did Critics Think of AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY at The Provincetown Theater?

The Cape Cod Premiere of the Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County is running now through May 26 at The Provincetown Theater.

The Tracy Letts play features Jennifer Cabral (Mattie Fae Aiken), Laura Cappello (Ivy), Celia Cota (Jean Fordham), Colin Delaney (Little Charles Aiken), Tim Famulare (Bill Fordham), Jaris Hanson (Violet), Dave LaFrance (Steve Heidenbrecht), Ian Leahy, Sandra Paredes (Johanna Monevata), Adam Peck (Beverly), Vanessa Rose (Karen Weston), Anne Stott (Barbara) and Nathaniel Hall Taylor (Sheriff Deon Gilbeau), with David Drake directing.

A vanished father. A pill-popping mother. Three sisters harboring shady little secrets. When the large Weston family unexpectedly reunites after Dad disappears, their Oklahoman family homestead explodes in a maelstrom of repressed truths and unsettling secrets. Mix in Violet, the drugged-up, scathingly acidic matriarch, and you've got a major play that unflinchingly-and uproariously-exposes the dark side of the Midwestern American family.

The comedy-drama premiered on Broadway in December 4, 2007 at the Imperial Theater before transferring to the Music Box Theater in April of 2008. A year after winning "Best Play" at the 2008 Tony Awards, August: Osage County closed on June 28, 2009.

For more information and tickets to Provincetown Theater's production, tap here.

Let's see what the critics say below.

Howard Karren, Wicked Local Provincetown: Drake's interpretation of "August: Osage County" is so well-conceived and well-executed, it renders the 2013 movie adaptation, with Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts (both Oscar-nominated), thoroughly dispensable. The play's vision of American domesticity is demoralizing and disillusioning, yet it soars to a plane of enlightenment that makes the journey worthwhile. It is, to misquote Eliot, much more of a bang than a whimper.

Ptownie Staff, Ptownie: You don't need the title of August: Osage County to know this play takes place on a series of hot summer nights: the heat nearly rises off the floorboards, and imbuing the characters with raw sizzle and passion. Not that they need any help. The dysfunctional family trope is alive and well as director David Drake takes on Tracy Letts' Pulitzer Prize-winning play and draws out drama worthy of any episode of the Jerry Springer show.

Steve Desroaches, Provincetown Magazine: Laura Cappello, Vanessa Rose, and Anne Stott, as the three Weston sisters, give performances that would make Chekhov weep and chuckle. AS a trio, the actors give a firm connective tissue to their sisterly bonds, establishing a true DNA of trauma, but one that has evolved in distinctive ways to adapt and more importantly survive.

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