Eugene ONeill

Long Day's Journey into Night

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A powerful, intensely moving portrayal of family life, 2001-03-04
Undoubtedly one of America's greatest playwrights, Eugene O'Neill's power lies in his ability to understand the complexities of the human psyche (and thereby create realistic and believable characters). "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is the best example of this talent, exploring the relationships between members of the Tyrone family (James, Edmond, Jamie and Mary) . Mary has become a morphine addict due to prescriptions by the family's "quack" doctor, and as the characters struggle to cope with her addiction, underlying grievances and contempt for one another are exposed. The emotional power of the work is immense. The terrible things that members of a family will do to one another are presented in a relentless and yet compassionate honesty and it is difficult not to be moved by the struggles of the Tyrone family. As a study of family, it is surely an unsurpassed work embued with a realism and truth that many will find remarkably 'close-to-home'. If we consider that the work is autobiographical in nature, this sense of realism can be more fully appreciated. O'Neill wrote the play in an attempt to understand himself and those to whom he was irrevocably tied by fate and by love. The humanity that the play displays because of this enhances the pain and emotional impact that "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is capable of. The play is O'Neill's greatest triumph, and it is not surprising that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature if works such as this are anything to go by.

The Iceman Cometh (Jonathan Cape Paperback)

Wonderful character driven play., 1999-10-13
I haven't seen any of the recent productions of this play, in fact I've never seen this play at all, so I was quite daunted when I started reading. I shouldn't have worried. This is a wonderful character driven story, filled with marvellous, believable people, who live out a couple of days in their lives for us to view. At the beginning a group of no-hopers are found in the back room of a bar, sleeping off their hang-overs and waiting for the arrival of Hickey, their travelling salesman buddy. When Hickey does turn up, he is not himself and for the rest of the play, the reasons behind this change are gradually revealed to us and the other characters, before the explosive series of monologues from Hickey which exposes his dark secret. Read this play. You won't regret it. All I want now is to see a production, where the actors fully appreciate O'Neill's characterisations. Shame I missed the Spacey production while it was in London! Jay

Anna Christie and The Emperor Jones

Three Plays: Desire under the Elms / Strange Interlude / Mourning Becomes Electra

Strange Interlude, 1997-04-15
I'm new to reading drama, but I have never seen anything quite like "Srange Interlude." In this experimental work, O'Neill actually takes the reader into the thoughts of the characters, by not only thier dialogue or gestures, as in most works, but by letting the characters think their streams of thought aloud. The plot is extremely well developed, though it's tinged with cliche at times. It centers around a mentally unstable woman groping for happiness and the happiness of her four lovers, each lovers in diffferent senses of the word. The first is her high school sweetheart, killed in the war. The second is her lifelong friend. the third is her husband, and the fourth is her doctor. Each have their quirks and instabilities, which make this play a strange interlude, indeed.

Long Day's Journey into Night (Jonathan Cape paperback, 46)

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A powerful, intensely moving portrayal of family life, 2001-03-04
Undoubtedly one of America's greatest playwrights, Eugene O'Neill's power lies in his ability to understand the complexities of the human psyche (and thereby create realistic and believable characters). "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is the best example of this talent, exploring the relationships between members of the Tyrone family (James, Edmond, Jamie and Mary) . Mary has become a morphine addict due to prescriptions by the family's "quack" doctor, and as the characters struggle to cope with her addiction, underlying grievances and contempt for one another are exposed. The emotional power of the work is immense. The terrible things that members of a family will do to one another are presented in a relentless and yet compassionate honesty and it is difficult not to be moved by the struggles of the Tyrone family. As a study of family, it is surely an unsurpassed work embued with a realism and truth that many will find remarkably 'close-to-home'. If we consider that the work is autobiographical in nature, this sense of realism can be more fully appreciated. O'Neill wrote the play in an attempt to understand himself and those to whom he was irrevocably tied by fate and by love. The humanity that the play displays because of this enhances the pain and emotional impact that "Long Day's Journey Into Night" is capable of. The play is O'Neill's greatest triumph, and it is not surprising that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature if works such as this are anything to go by.

Mourning Becomes Electra

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Mourning Becomes Electra., 2010-04-14
`Mourning Becomes Electra' is a re-casting of Aeschylus' `Oresteia'; the only extant trilogy of Greek tragic drama. Lifting the scene from ancient Greece to post-civil war New England, O'Neil contrives a series of plays that is significantly more violent, sexual and psychologically interested that Aeschylus'. The writer gives a theatrical nod-of-the-head to his sources by bestowing his characters with names which phonically resemble their ancient counterparts; thus Agamemnon becomes `Ezra Mannon', Clytaemnestra `Christine' and Orestes is re-cast as `Orin'.

I would usually not recommend reading a play over watching it in performance; however, reading `Mourning Becomes Electra' is a unique experience in and of itself. This is entirely due to O'Neil's copious and profuse stage directions, which are so precise and exhaustive that they create an almost novelistic reading experience. It is immediately clear why O'Neil had a reputation as a difficult writer to work with; many of his stage directions are impossible to realise in performance, due to the limitations of the theatrical dramatic medium. This problem means that reading these plays is as important a part of realising their ostensible aesthetic identity as watching them performed.

Everything about these plays is incredibly intense; both emotionally and physically. The tragic self-destruction of all of the protagonists is realised through a language so passionate and violent that, even though we know how the story ends, the reader/viewer is always left both disturbed and heart-broken. Who, for example, could resist such cruel and moving expressions of self-hatred as Orin's rave to his sister: "The only love I can know now is the love of guilt for guilt which breeds more guilt - until you get so deep at the bottom of hell there is no lower you can sink and you rest there in peace." In the dark and bitter context of the drama, this type of expression is never over the top or unnecessary.

If you're in the mood for a desperately tragic and moving reading experience, then I very highly recommend the insanity, violence, sexuality and passion of O'Neil's masterpiece.

Desire Under the Elms & The Great God Brown

A Moon for the Misbegotten

The Iceman Cometh

• New
• Mint Condition
• Dispatch same day for order received before 12 noon
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• No quibbles returns

Wonderful character driven play., 1999-10-13
I haven't seen any of the recent productions of this play, in fact I've never seen this play at all, so I was quite daunted when I started reading. I shouldn't have worried. This is a wonderful character driven story, filled with marvellous, believable people, who live out a couple of days in their lives for us to view. At the beginning a group of no-hopers are found in the back room of a bar, sleeping off their hang-overs and waiting for the arrival of Hickey, their travelling salesman buddy. When Hickey does turn up, he is not himself and for the rest of the play, the reasons behind this change are gradually revealed to us and the other characters, before the explosive series of monologues from Hickey which exposes his dark secret. Read this play. You won't regret it. All I want now is to see a production, where the actors fully appreciate O'Neill's characterisations. Shame I missed the Spacey production while it was in London! Jay

Three Great Plays: The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie, the Hairy Ape (Dover Thrift Editions)