Osage Is Okay But...

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So my 12.23 post about the Weinstein Co.'s planned adaptation of Tracy Letts'August Osage County possibly being in limbo with presumed costars Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts having flown the coop does not reflect how things really are, I'm pleased to report.

Deadline's Pete Hammond wrote a day or so ago that "the Weinstein Company's David Glasser [says that] the long-awaited screen version of August, Osage County should be getting underway around September as both Streep's and Roberts' schedules seem to be clearing for then. John Wells is going to direct and Glasser said the script by playwright Tracy Letts is fantastic. Another Weinstein Oscar contender for 2013?"

So a 2007 play is going to finally hit screens in 2013...maybe. But a little voice is telling me that the Weinsteiners might have waited too long.

Because of the delicate and always volatile shifting of the zeitgeist and the general reordering of things that happens on a continuing cosmic basis, the right kind of film adaptation of a Broadway play always hits screens within three to four years (like Mike Nichols' 1966 Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff arriving four years after the original Broadway play). If the movie version arrives five or six or seven years later something is always lost on some vague level. The things in the cultural ether that led to the writing of the original play have dissipated and floated away like pollen, or have otherwise been transformed.

I was sitting in an an orchestra seat on opening night of the 1984 Broadway production of David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, and I can tell you it was electric and vital as blood -- a play about rapacious greed just as the Reagan era Wall Street boom was kicking in. It had no fucking steak knives and it was fucking perfect. But the Al Pacino-Jack Lemmon-Alec Baldwin movie adaptation didn't come out until 1992, at the dawn of the Clinton era. It's a fairly good film and will always be an excellent play, but too many years had passed. The sands had shifted and it just wasn't the same. You should've been there with me for that 1984 Glengarry debut. People were levitating out of their seats.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on January 14, 2012 at 10:35 AM

comment #1

MikeSchaeferSF says ...

OTOH, there's [i]Carnage[/i].

But [i]Osage[ County/i] will always make me think of Jeff: when I saw it in April of 2008 in NYC I arrived about 20 mins early and there were 2 HUUUGE (over 300 lbs each) guys, a father and a son, standing off to the side of the orchestra. They didn't fit in the theater seats and were waiting for the manager to either provide them with special chairs (ha!) or give them their money back. As they left I heard one of them exclaim "well nobody TOLD us it was a 3-and-a-half-hour play!!" And I thought "if only Wells could be here to see this and write about it".

Still say Jane Fonda would be a better choice than Streep, but hoping it's good in any case.

Posted by MikeSchaeferSF at January 14, 2012 11:41 AM

comment #2

MikeSchaeferSF says ...

oops, wrong HTML brackets...

Posted by MikeSchaeferSF at January 14, 2012 11:42 AM

comment #3

Kevin Daly says ...

Jeff, I was at the Broadway opening of "August: Osage County" and my experience was quite similar to yours. It was one of the most electric nights I've ever spent in a theatre, and Amy Morton's act two closing line (or war cry as I liked to call it) receive a reaction I have never experienced before, or since (and that includes six more visits to "August" on Broadway). The house lights had come up for intermission and people were still in their seats, screaming, applauding and stomping their feet. Unreal.

I can't see a film, especially now, being as satisfactory as the play but am curious to see how it translates. Ideally, they should have taped the original cast for PBS (like they used to do).

Posted by Kevin Daly at January 14, 2012 12:40 PM

comment #4

Robert Cashill says ...

GLENGARRY, with or without steak knives, has a cult following and is still widely quoted. It's almost more relevant today. But AUGUST, a family melodrama, isn't tied to a specific hot button issue; it can hit you where you live whenever or however (stage or screen) you see it, like LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT or THE HEIRESS. And quality counts: The film of DOUBT came out four years after the play, but miscasting and "opening out" blunted the impact it had on stage.

Posted by Robert Cashill at January 14, 2012 1:34 PM

comment #5

bobbyperu says ...

Kevin-

I saw it twice with Morton and her "act two closing line" elicited the same reaction as you describe -- from myself as well.

Posted by bobbyperu at January 14, 2012 2:01 PM

comment #6

cyanic says ...

They need to replace the director and Meryl Streep. Sissy Spacek would be superior.

Posted by cyanic at January 14, 2012 2:30 PM

comment #7

opinion says ...

Apart from being truly envious of your 1984 remembrance, I have to say that Glengarry is also an example of casting by foreign sales reps - whereas a bunch of 'names' are thrown together without any reason or logic behind it - kind of like those disaster ensemble pictures from the seventies, where they are all horribly miscast.

Posted by opinion at January 14, 2012 2:35 PM

comment #8

alynch says ...

As someone who wasn't even born in 1984, I find it impossible to comprehend the notion that Glengarry plays better without the steak knives scene.

Posted by alynch at January 14, 2012 2:42 PM

comment #9

Rashad says ...

Someone is actually complaining about the cast of Glengarry Glen Ross? Jeez

Posted by Rashad at January 14, 2012 3:14 PM

comment #10

opinion says ...

Dear Rashad, let me be more polite than you are and not refer to you as someone. Furthermore, because I am so kind, let me educate you: A 'miscast' film is not a 'complaint about the cast'. Is this clear to you or do we need to stay after class to explain it further?

Posted by opinion at January 14, 2012 4:00 PM

comment #11

opinion says ...

Anticipating the disorientation, the clarification: The list of movies that do not quite work despite a stellar cast is long and is actually a kind of well honored tradition of mediocrity. This movie has a great material, and an ideal cast but despite brilliant bits the movie never ignites to the heights the material promises. It is not badly directed, so whose fault is it? The DP? Wise up, guys

Posted by opinion at January 14, 2012 4:09 PM

comment #12

Rashad says ...

How is saying the movie is miscast, not a complaint about the cast? The cast and their interactions is the best part of the film. Everyone is on point; it's the story that isn't too great to begin with.

Posted by Rashad at January 14, 2012 5:43 PM

comment #13

the400blows says ...

I saw AUGUST OSAGE COUNTY on Broadyway, and I never could understand what was so great about it. Yeah--it was funny. But, to me, it lacked substance. It seemed very "sit-com"--something you would watch on TV. IMO, it was no where as meaningful or heartfelt like LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, THE GLASS MENAGERIE, or DEATH OF A SALESMAN. (And, yes, I saw all three of those plays on the stage in revival.) In any case, I don't think any cast will help the screen version of this play. But I may be wrong. If it's anything like DRIVING MISS DAISY, I rest my case.

Posted by the400blows at January 15, 2012 8:01 AM

comment #14

Robert Cashill says ...

DRIVING MISS DAISY is a terrific stage-to-screen transpositiion; indeed, I prefer the movie over the play.

Posted by Robert Cashill at January 15, 2012 12:08 PM

comment #15

Michael Strangeways says ...

Jesus, why the fuck is Julia Roberts in this? They need ACTORS not movie stars. Or, at least stars who CAN act. And, Roberts doesn't even have that much BO power anymore. Replace her with Laura Linney.

Osage is not a movie star piece...it's about REAL people. It needs actors who can convincingly portray real people. Any hint of Botox and the whole piece is fucked up.

It's too bad Melissa Leo is the wrong age for this. She's not old enough for the mother, and too old for the daughters. Though, maybe she could play the mother's sister...

Posted by Michael Strangeways at January 15, 2012 1:42 PM

comment #16