In Friday’s print edition of the paper, I discuss the likely Broadway winners at the Tony Awards this weekend — and which are the gayest of the lot. I basically limited by coverage to musicals, because, well, that’s mostly what people go to New York to see.
But the best show there right now isn’t gay at all and it’s likely to take a heap of Tonys: “August: Osage County.” Already this year’s Pulitzer Prizewinner for drama, this Tracy Letts play about a dysfunctional Oklahoma family calls to mind countless precursors in American theater — O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” Hellman’s “The Little Foxes” and almost everything written by Sam Shepard — and yet it seems completely, organically unique. Expect it to win best play, director, featured actress (Rondi Reed) and for Deanna Dunagan, as a pill-popping matriarch, to surpass co-star Amy Morton for leading actress in a play. The only real surprise is that none of the men in the show were nominated at all.
Both Kitchen Dog Theater and Contemporary Theatre of Dallas have histories doing either Letts’ work or insightful American dramas, but whoever does it locally, go see it when you can. And don’t miss the Tony Awards on Sunday on CBS, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg.Â
