Writing about seeing “August: Osage County” last week gave me the opportunity to coalesce my thoughts about live theater. One of my questions to myself was, “If acting is acting then what makes the theater experience different than a performance on screen?”

First it begins with the written word. The text. The difference between a play and a screenplay is the number of words on the page. They both need a good story and they both develop a compliment of interesting characters. But, here’s where they begin to differ. In a play, the dramatic action of the words drives the story. The screen, and therefore the screenplay becomes a visual storytelling device. Add to that the ingredient of what happens when the action is live and you can see that the audience receives a very different performance experience.

The problem is that not enough people can or choose to see live theater. The reasons vary of course. Sometimes it’s the price of the theater tickets. Sometimes it’s not having venues where live theater is produced or presented. Sometimes it is just not having been exposed to the exhilaration of the experience.

There is an interesting move afoot that might change all of that. The Metropolitan Opera started it all several years ago through its presentation of their selected opera productions on large screens, first at Lincoln Center and then in Times Square.  Then they presented the Peabody Award winning hi-definition telecasts of operas live from the Met in selected movie theaters. It is an incredible screen experience of a live performance. Not one edited for the screen but a performance seen as it is happening. Affordable and exhilarating. Now in it’s fourth season Live from the Met promises an exciting season of broadcast feeds at a movie theater in your community. Now, no matter where you live, you can have season tickets to the Met!

The newest entry into this live experience is theater. This time you can sit in your local movie theater or art museum and see live theater direct from London. The National Theater opened its season on June 24 with its heralded production of “Phaedra.” There are three more plays to come over this season. Think of it. You can experience a great company of actors performing wonderful plays at the very moment they are happening without flying to England. Amazing concept. I’m planning on organizing a theater party. Not just locally but I intend to get my daughter and her fiance, who live in London, and several of our London staff, to join our US USPA staff at the same performance. That way we can have a company outing at the theater together! Maybe you’ll join us too. I’m hoping that next year dance companies will follow suit and we’ll be able to enjoy the performances of the world’s renowned opera, theater and dance companies as part of our yearly entertainment.

Sometime in 2007 I spotted a newspaper article that announced that Tracy Letts had written a new play for Steppenwolf Theatre Company. I filed it away in my head thinking that I’d have to remember to look for the reviews. I have admired Letts’ work since I first read “Killer Joe.” He’s a great storyteller and uses words like a skilled surgeon. I did see the review. The play: August: Osage County. The Chicago press LOVED it and I remember thinking, “That plays going to Broadway!” That play not only went to Broadway but it claimed a Pulitzer Prize and five Tony Awards on the way.

Over the past two years every time a friend told me they were going to NYC I immediately recommended that they get tickets to see August: Osage County. Every time they did I would get a phone call telling me how fantastic the play is. One friend of mine, a produced playwright no longer living in New York, went to see it on my recommendation and told me it was the best play he’d seen in 10 years! But I hadn’t seen it. Not for lack of trying, I can assure you. On three trips to New York over the past two years and one trip to London I scored a big fat zero in coming up with tickets. Last night was different.

It was my husband’s and my anniversary and without warning our eldest daughter sent us two tickets. Truthfully, as much as I wanted to see this play I had a few misgivings about spending more than three hours with a family that has been described as one step below dysfunctional on our anniversary but there was no way we could, or would, pass up this opportunity and gift.

This blog is not intended to be a review of a play that needs no words from amateurs. I can only say that it is all that theater is supposed to be. There isn’t a disappointment anywhere. It all starts with the words on the page and Letts gave the actors everything they needed to become richly layered people. The words are at once sharply witty and bitingly cutting. This is a big expansive three act play and there isn’t a moment that the audience isn’t fully involved.

I purposely didn’t say “characters” when talking about this play because the extended Weston family is much more than that. The actors are everything you should be training to be. Their skill at making truthful lives leaves the audience, three hours later, wanting more. They also leave you identifying their persona’s with people in your own life.

The three story set, the costumes, the lighting and the sound all perfectly enhance the drama of this play. Nothing is too minimal and nothing is used to excess. Perfect.

And then there’s Estelle Parsons. Because I never saw Deanna Dunagan’s Tony Award-winning portrayal of Violet, the Weston clan’s matriarch, I certainly can’t compare the performances. I can tell you one thing though, my feeling is if Ms. Parsons opened that show today she would most certainly win the award too! But this isn’t a one-woman show. It is an ensemble cast feeding off each other in a way that makes this evening of theater as good as it gets.

This national tour has only just begun. When this play gets to your city make sure you see it.