Top 10 Theater Productions
#1. August: Osage County
By Tracy Letts
Three and a half hours long and boasting the worst title on Broadway, Tracy Letts's new play arrived in New York from Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre with a lot to prove. Miraculously, it's better than we could have dreamed. The suicide of a retired Oklahoma professor is the impetus for a ferocious family get-together. The pill-popping matriarch has echoes of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night; the withering sarcasm recalls Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Acts of startling psychological cruelty mix with moments of heartrending warmth; banal marital problems dovetail with shocking hints of incest. Yet nothing seems forced or hyped for effect. This original and corrosive black comedy deserves a seat at the dinner table with the great American family plays.
A Brief History of White House State Dinners
Airline Bag Fees: As High as the Cost of a Seat?
Prehistoric Super-Crocodiles May Have Dined on Dinosaurs
Junior Eurovision: Schoolyard Crushes with Glitter
Can the A380 Bring the Party Back to the Skies?
Who Will Inherit Joel Stein's Kid?
Cartoons of the Week
The Weekly Acoustic News
Climate Central: Training Pilots to Land on Skis
Asterix at 50: The Comic Hero Conquers the World