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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Entertainment
Dee Jefferson

August: Osage County review – Pamela Rabe leads stellar cast in an American tragicomedy

Pamela Rabe Tracy Letts America Osage County United States Belvoir Eamon Flack Sydney Perth
Pamela Rabe, Tamsin Carroll, Helen Thomson, Greg Stone and Esther Williams in August: Osage County
Pamela Rabe, Tamsin Carroll, Helen Thomson, Greg Stone and Esther Williams in August: Osage County at Belvoir Theatre, Sydney. Photograph: Brett Boardman

In the wake of the US election, two Pulitzer prize-winning American plays have opened simultaneously on Gadigal Country in Sydney this week: at Belvoir, Tracy Letts’ 2007 drama August: Osage County; and at Sydney Theatre Company, Lynn Nottage’s 2015 tale of fractured friendship, Sweat. Both centre on women, and both explore the legacies of economic impoverishment. Both have America on their mind.

That’s about where the similarities end. It’s easy to see why Sweat was programmed for this moment: a play that debuted on the eve of Donald Trump’s first term, set among disenfranchised steelworkers in Pennsylvania – a crucial battleground in recent US elections – and exploring the vexed intersection of class and race.

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