Staying Power of Eugene O'Neill Plays

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/23/06 at 8:05pm

In the wake of the "Misbegotten" revival announcement, I was just wondering the staying power of Eugene O'Neill's plays. I know there was a revival of the show a few years ago. How was it received by critics and audiences?

How have his other plays fared? What were the critical responses of the recent productions of Iceman and Long Day's Journey? I know that most of these productions have had "big name" casting - Brian Dennehey, Vanessa Redgrave, Kevin Spacey, and Gabriel Byrne (both of whom seem to be the O'Neill go-to guys.) Obviously, they can sell out a show's run. Would they have been as successful if someone with less of a reputation had starred?

[Smaxie]

Posted: 11/23/06 at 8:31pm

Long Day's Journey was a major critical and financial hit. Iceman Cometh was a critical hit (slightly overshadowed that season by the acclaimed and Tony-winning Death of a Salesman revival). I don't remember if Iceman recouped, as the production featured a large cast in a limited engagement. Moon for the Misbegotten opened to mostly favorable reviews, including a Ben Brantley rave, but ran for about four months. I'd imagine the Kevin Spacey revival, even though it feels too soon for the play's return, will be a critical and financial success in its limited engagement.

[nomdeplume]

Posted: 11/23/06 at 11:56pm

I was a bit disappointed with the last Broadway version of Moon and I can't imagine them doing it again so soon on Broadway, Spacey or no.

It's just not the family rollercoaster of A Long Day's Journey Into Night, which is one of my favorite plays.

[virgil blessing2]

Posted: 11/24/06 at 4:02am

His one comedy, "AH, WILDRENESS!", has had a succsessful revivial or 2. it's such a sweet piece. i am amazed it came from him. it was my first lead ever, I played his character, "Richard" back when I was in high school in 1984.

"In Ah, Wilderness!, penned in a single month in 1932, the Harvard educated playwright takes a well deserved vacation from a cold and unrelenting world, and gives us a surprisingly warm portrayal of middle-class family life in "large small-town America." The comedy was an experiment in wishful thinking for O'Neill. Subtitled "A nostalgic comedy of the Ancient Days when Youth was Young, and Right was Right, and life was a wicked opportunity," O'Neill described his play as "a sort of wishing out loud. It is the way I would have liked my childhood to have been."

Set on the fourth of July in 1906, the play focuses on 17-year old Richard Miller, a young poet rebelling against the conformity of middle-class life and the apparent self deception that fosters it. We follow many of Richard's "firsts." He gets his first kiss from a prostitute in the same sleazy joint where he experiences his first drunken stupor and his first fight. He then expresses true first love with his sweetheart later that night in a rowboat under the moonlight."

For many, it's a nostalgic trip back to childhood, while others share O'Neill's own yearning for a childhood they never had.