Deanna Dunagan and Amy Morton in
August: Osage County
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August: Osage County may take place in a small town to the west of Tulsa, Oklahoma, a location that might not necessarily be expected to land with London theatergoers. But the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production, which opened on November 26 at the National Theatre, opened to reviews at least the equal of the admiring reactions to the play in New York and Chicago. And as Anna D. Shapiro’s staging settled in for an eight-week run at the Lyttelton auditorium, the play’s various creators were breathing a sigh of satisfaction that so potentially site-specific a piece has, as they say, legs.
With eight days of London performances under her belt, Tony nominee Amy Morton, who plays Barbara, the eldest and feistiest of the play’s three daughters, was relishing the quality of response characteristic of the London theater at its best. “They’re such keen listeners, the London audience,” Morton said, speaking by telephone prior to a Sunday matinee which is itself something of a London novelty: only recently has the National been able to mount shows on what is in most cases a British actor’s one day off. “That’s not to say that American audiences aren’t, [but] there’s something a little bit more subdued about London audiences where you just feel a complete and utter attention which is, you know, great.”...