Both Chris Jones and TimeOut Chicago’s Christopher Piatt address the issue head-on at the beginning of their highly favorable reviews for Tracy Letts’s new play Superior Donuts, just opened at the Steppenwolf Downstairs Theatre: this is not August: Osage County/a great modern American play redux, so let’s just chill out and move on. And I think that is the savvy, responsible, truthful, and mature thing to do, just to neutralize the unrealistic and, frankly, unfair expectations all of us-critics, audience members, theatrical pundits alike- had for this play given the stature of its predecessor in the contemporary American theatrical canon. Superior Donuts, is not, cannot be, August: Osage County (and this is the last time I am going to conjure up the specter of that masterpiece), it is intimate, modest, heart-warming, focused, a gentle breeze on a hot summer afternoon. It is also one hell of a good, funny play taken on its own terms, and within its own low-flying ambitions.
Jul 03
Recent Comments