New article about Tracy Letts’ adaptation of “August: Osage County” for the big screen courtesy The Los Angeles Times: Letts’ play tells of several generations of the colorful Weston family, particularly drug-addled matriarch Violet (Streep) and troubled professor daughter Barbara (Roberts), as they gather in the family home for a few weeks one summer, each personality trying to get the better of the other as they cope with their complicated lives. “I think it’s very recognizably the same piece,” he said. “There’s not a lot of invention per se. There are opportunities to let them loose from the house, and I did some cutting to try to find those places in a play that sound maybe a little theatrical to the ear if you were doing them on screen. But that’s about it.” Several months ago, as he was preparing for that show, Letts traveled to the Oklahoma set of “August” to join actors at a table read and field questions. Roberts, Streep and others peppered him with the meaning of the text. (He said their questions were “workmanlike” queries about their characters and his intentions, “things an outsider might find banal but that are important to an actor.”) The complete article can be read here.
