By Christopher Wallenberg
12 Aug 2008

It's up to the steely-eyed Barbara to right the ship, even if she risks transforming into her mother in the process. "Barbara has this great arc. She starts the play in a very precarious place. Her father is missing. Her marriage is on the rocks. That's a whole lot of meat right there, before you even utter a word. As the play progresses, the ground under her feet starts moving more and more, and she becomes less and less stable. It's really fun to walk in having your character expect one thing, and [then] something completely different happens. Plus, I get to be outrageous. I mean, who doesn't want to strangle their mother every once in a while?"

The hardest aspect of playing the role, Morton says, is remaining upright by the end of the taxing, three-hour-plus show. She's lost 15 pounds since coming to New York, and she now sees a chiropractor and a physical therapist once a week. "On two-show days, you just want to blow your brains out."

August actually marks Morton's second appearance on Broadway. Her debut came in 2001 as Nurse Ratched in a revival of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest opposite Gary Sinise. A longtime Chicago theatre actress, Morton joined the famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company more than a decade ago. She has also begun directing plays with increasing frequency, helming acclaimed productions of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and Glengarry Glen Ross at Steppenwolf (both starring Letts). Still, she has no problem admitting that August probably marks the pinnacle of her career.

"It's like when you open up Long Day's Journey Into Night or some great American play, and you see the original cast listing, and you go, 'Wow, that must have been something.' I get to have my name in there! I'm never going to get a part like this again in my life. I mean this in the most positive way: It's all downhill from here."