Strange Interlude by Eugene O'Neill (1928)

Summary: The play follows the life of Nina Leeds over the course of about twenty-five years and is fundamentally about her relationships with men.

When the play opens, she is grieving the loss of her fiancee Gordon. Her father fears that she might be going crazy because she has recently informed him of her plan to become an army nurse. When Gordon entered the war, the two had not consummated their relationship and she is wracked with guilt because of it. Nina secretly wants to be an army nurse so that she can provide sexual comfort to the men returning from war.

After becoming an army nurse and engaging in sexual congress with lots of soldiers, Nina feels guilty. She returns home. Charles Marsden (a writer and friend of her now-dead father) advises that she should atone for her sexual sins by marrying sweet Sam Evans. Though she does not love Sam or feel sexually attracted to him, she does.

When she gets pregnant with Sam's baby, she is thrilled. However, her mother-in-law is horrified by the pregnancy and convinces Nina that she must abort the baby because the men in Sam's family have a history of insanity. When Nina tells Mrs. Evans that the only thing keeping her happy is the pregnancy, Mrs. Evan's suggests that Nina abort the baby and then have sex with a male friend: when a child inevitably arrives, Sam will assume that it is his.

Nina enters into an affair with Dr. Ned Darrell, informs him of her plans to have his child and he agrees. Though their afternoons of rapture do produce a child, they also fall in love along the way.

When the child (named Gordon!) arrives, Sam is thrilled and Ned leaves the country. When Ned returns years later, Sam's business has taken off, Nina is a shell of her former self and Gordon is a strapping young athlete. When Sam unexpectedly dies, Gordon tells his mother and Ned (his unknown father) that they should probably marry. Because too much has passed between them, they refuse. Instead, Nina remarries old Charlie Marsden--who has remained at the periphery, closely observing all of Nina's life choices.

Thoughts: Well. Quite a plot summary.

For the second time in the project, Eugene O'Neill uses the word "slut" to describe a woman (both instances in plays from the 1920s). In each of his four Pulitzer Prize winning plays, O'Neill creates women who are central to the story but who are often sexually promiscuous, always deeply flawed and frequently spiteful and mean. While his portrayal of women is certainly cringe-inducing, it is partially obscured in this play by the fact that none of the characters are very likable. They each have sinister ulterior motives, most surrounding sex or money.

Interestingly, the ulterior motives in this play are blatantly obvious because O'Neill has made the artistic choice to have each character speak almost all of their subtext.  Usually marked by a stage direction of "thinking", these lines are meant to be spoken. Finding a way to artistically and believably stage the play would be difficult because although the characters speak their emotions, but O'Neill offers no staging advice and each line of "thinking" reads like a soliloquy. Additionally, there are certain lines without "thinking", so this could quickly become confusing for an audience member. Adding to the challenge of staging is the fact that this play contains nine acts and is over 300 pages long.

South Pacific by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein and Joshua Logan (1950)

Summary:  American military men are stationed on an island in the South Pacific during World War II.  While a war is going on around them, the primary stories in this play are the relationships.  Featured in the Rodgers/Hammerstein adaptation of James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific are:

Interactions between stationed (and bored) sailors
A budding, serious romance between young nurse Nellie Forbush (from Little Rock) and Emile DeBecque, a mysterious older Frenchman
A flirtation and possibly sexual relationship between young, attractive Lieutenant Cable and Liat, a seventeen year old Tonkinese native.  

An illegal picture taken from my seat at Lincoln Center in August.  Instead of a curtain, Michener's text appeared on the stage before the overture.

In Act 2, Nellie informs Emile that she cannot be with him because his two children (from a deceased wife) are half Polynesian.  She explains that her Little Rock upbringing has influenced her as Lieutenant Cable sings, "You've got to be taught to be afraid/Of people whose eyes are oddly made/And people whose skin is a different shade--/You've got to be carefully taught" (136).  Heartbroken by the news that Nellie will not be his wife, Emile agrees to help the American soldiers on a very dangerous mission...that is the ultimate end of Lieutenant Cable.  When Emile returns home, Nellie is mothering his children and the play ends in a "happily ever after" embrace.

Thoughts:  It seems strange to me that this is the only Pulitzer Prize for Rodgers and Hammerstein--and even more puzzling that their one Pulitzer is for this play.  This is not a disparaging statement about this South Pacific, but in keeping with the guidelines stating that plays should be about the American experience, I am surprised that Oklahoma! was not awarded. 

When I saw the revival of this play at Lincoln Center in August of 2010, I cringed at the "people whose eyes are oddly made" line and started thinking about the issue of race in the American musical.  Clearly, this is a subject I have been thinking about during the last three months of this project.  In this play, Nellie takes a risk by exposing her feelings about race, but this issue is never dealt with after her initial confession.  In his absence, she realizes that Emile is important to her; but her discomfort with the children is never further explored.

When I saw this play, I quickly noticed that the most memorable songs of the musical take place in the first act...and though the second act is shorter, it seems to drag, certainly in part because of Emile's song "This Nearly Was Mine" which seems to go on forever.  This issue of balance was not as evident while reading the play; because unlike some of the other musicals on the list, there is a great deal of spoken text in this play...rather than text serving as a bridge to get to the next song.

I knew this illegal picture would come in handy someday.  Personal photo, August 2010.

Anna Christie by Eugene O'Neill (1922)

Summary:  Christopher Christopherson is an aging sailor who receives a letter (care of the local tavern) from his estranged daughter.  Anna is writing to say that she will soon be arriving for an extended stay.  He is delighted and makes room for her aboard his barge.  When she arrives, it becomes clear that she is there because she needs a break from her career as a whore.  Oblivious to this and happy to see her, he persuades her to stay aboard the ship.

A few nights later, a stranded crew finds their way on-board Christopherson's barge.  Quickly, one of the refugee passengers (Mat Owen) falls in love with Anna.  In a dramatic scene of self-disclosure, Anna reveals to her father and Mat (who now wants to marry her) that she was previously making her living as a prostitute.  All hell beaks loose, Mat and Chris go ashore, leaving Anna in despair on the boat.  Eventually, both of the men come back and Mat agrees to marry Anna "in spite of it all" (188). 

Thoughts:  Eugene O'Neill's other Pulitzer Prizes are for Strange Interlude, Long Day's Journey Into Night and Beyond the Horizon.  While I can certainly see elements of all of those works in this play (family, men returning from the sea, alcohol), I was surprised to read the following outburst:  "God's curse on you!  You slut, you, I'll be killing you now!"  (Act 3, 180)  One scene before calling her a slut, Mat also attacked Chris (physically) after Chris explicitly stated that he did not want his daughter marrying a man of the sea. 

Perhaps most troubling is the scene of reconciliation that ends the play.  In that scene, Mat returns to Anna and berates her for her transgressions as a whore.  She protests saying things like, "Don't you seem I'm licked?  Why d'you want to keep on kicking me?"  He responds with, "And don't you deserve the worst I'd say, God forgive you?"  (186).  When she finally convinces him that she did not love any of her clients and instead loves him, Matt asks her to promise this by swearing with her hand on a crucifix.  After she has sworn, he asks if she is Catholic and is horrified to discover that she is a Lutheran.  Regardless, he agrees to marry her.  It is then revealed that Chris and Mat will soon be shipmates on a voyage to South Africa.  Although Mat threw a chair at Chris just days before, everyone guffaws and the play ends happily ever after (cringe).

Long Day's Journey Into Night by Eugene O'Neill (1957)

Summary:  The play takes place over the course of one day in the summer of 1912 at the Tyrone summer home.  Patriarch James Tyrone is a mediocre but working actor, his wife Mary is a not-so-recovering morphine addict and his living sons Edmund and James are grown boys who drink too much, enjoy the company of whores and can't seem to hold continuous jobs.  Younger brother Edmund (who once did hold a job as a sailor) has an ominous persistent cough that is eventually formally diagnosed as tuberculosis, though all members of the family are slow to accept this fact.  As the day progresses from 8:30 AM to midnight, the men of the family get drunker as Mary slips into morphine-induced hysteria.

Thoughts:  Though I have not yet checked the tag counts, I am fairly certain that the most used tags in this project have been "dysfunctional family", "drama" and "alcohol."  This play is perhaps the most distilled example of the combination of these subjects.  Many of the plays in the project have taken place in living rooms, with people sitting around:  first talking to each other, then fighting with each other.  This play is certainly no exception.  From the beginning, O'Neill makes it clear that the fights on this day are not new.  Instead, they are conflicts that have been familiar to the Tyrone family since the first child (Jamie) was born.

While the play depicts the ugliness of addiction and the specific sting of family arguments, the importance of the past is a major theme in the play (reminiscent of so many recipients of the Pulitzer Prize).  The theme of "the importance of the past" is unearthed by characters with contrasting opinions on the issue (reminding me of The Piano Lesson and Topdog/Underdog).  James is hard on his sons because he wants them to do something with their lives and create a future for themselves; while Mary is obsessive about remembering the past.  She states, "The past is the present, isn't it?  It's the future, too.  We all try to lie out of that but life won't let us"  (Act 2, Scene 2).  Later, she stresses, "Only the past when you were happy is real" (Act 3).  Though things have gone wrong in her life (death of an infant named Eugene, addiction to morphine, single alcoholic sons, etc.) she yearns for a time when things were better....even though this time may be a highly fictionalized creation of her drug-addled mind.

In the Norton Anthology of Drama Introduction to this text, Martin Puchner writes that this play is probably very close to autobiography for Eugene O'Neill.  O'Neill's father was an actor.  After having some success in a production of The Count of Monte Cristo, he stayed in that role until the end of his life and was never given the chance to blossom as an actor.  Though comfortable, he probably wasn't artistically fulfilled (much like James Tyrone).  Likewise, O'Neill's mother hated traveling and never felt that the family had a "home" since they accompanied their patriarch on his tours across the United States.  This play is one of the longest in the project, and there are very few moments of levity or hope in the text.  The dramatic structure of the play (and therefore any reading/watching of it) closely mirrors the title.

Beyond the Horizon by Eugene O'Neill (1920)

Summary:  In Act 1, the Mayo family is preparing for the departure of their son Robert who plans to go on a three year sea-voyage with his uncle.  Because he has never been one for farming, his mother and father feel that the trip will be a great way for him to find himself while his younger brother Andrew (a natural farmer) stays at home and possibly starts a relationship with Ruth (the girl he spends most of his time with).  Hours before he is supposed to leave, Robert reveals to Ruth that he has always loved her; because she elatedly reciprocates, he decides to stay.  Andy, angry and heartbroken, hastily decides he will go on the voyage instead--a distressing revelation to both of his parents.

Act 2 opens three years later.  Robert and Ruth are decidedly unhappy, have an infant child and the farm is steadily declining.  In a moment of intense anger, Ruth reveals to Robert that she has always loved Andrew.  Moments later, Andrew enters--back from a successful journey.

Five years later, Act 3 begins and things have gotten markedly worse.  The infant has died, the marriage is miserable and Robert has a terminal illness.  Andrew returns with a specialist to take care of Robert, and Robert makes his wife and brother promise to marry after his death.  They try to argue with him as he draws his dying breath.  The play ends with Ruth and Andrew looking at each other, not sure what to do.

Thoughts:  I have put off reading this play for weeks because it is one of the longest, but I really enjoyed it.  While it is another in a long line of plays about unhappy families, O'Neill's writing stands alone (meaning:  I don't think I necessarily need to see this play to fully appreciate the story/characters).

As a sickly young child, Robert spent much of his time looking "beyond the horizon" and imagining what was "out there" waiting for him.  Because he chose to stay at home, he never got to discover the world and was left with a pile of what-ifs and might-have-beens.