The Critical Response to Eugene O'Neill

by John H. Houchin

Overview

Extolled and maligned, Eugene O'Neill was unquestionably the first American playwright of international stature, and his major plays, such as The Iceman Cometh and Long Day's Jourbaney Into Night, remain giants of the American stage. Acres of print have been devoted to O'Neill by theatre critics and literary scholars. This new collection assesses the full range of critical response, considered historically through the entire oeuvre and covering major themes and critical stances. It culls from opening night reviews of premieres and revivals as well as scholarly essays from influential critics and anonymous writers, from boosters and detractors, with the uniqueness of the critical observation being the main criterion for selection. An introduction outlines the major issues and avenues of O'Neill discourse, and a selective bibliography provides additional sources for O'Neill study.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313276170
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/21/1993
Series:	Critical Responses in Arts and Letters , #5
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

JOHN H. HOUCHIN teaches at the Southern Illinois University. His publications have appeared in the Dictionary of Stage Directors published by Greenwood Press and The Drama Review.

Table of Contents

Series Foreword by Cameron Northouse
Preface
Introduction: The O'Neill Discourse by John H. Houchin
Early Success: Down and Alley on Drama Trail
Washington Square Players
The Play: New Bill at the Greenwich Village
Seen on the Stage: The Provincetown Players
Theatre Arts Bookshelf
The Plays of Eugene O'Neill
Second Thoughts on First Nights: The Provincetown Plays
The Drama: Beyond the Horizon (Towse)
Beyond the Horizon (Ridge)
Chris
Eugene O'Neill's Remarkable Play: The Emperor Jones
The New Season
Emperor Jones Revived
Experimentation and Controversy: The Play
Drama: Gold
Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie Is Thrilling Drama, Perfectly Acted with a Bad Ending
Second Thoughts on First Nights
Chris and Poseidon: Man Versus God in Anna Christie
Theatre
Eugene O'Neill's The Straw Is Gruesome Clinical Tale
First Man, New O'Neill Play, Is Gloomy Suburban Story
The New Play
The Hairy Ape
Eugene O'Neill's Emperor Jones and The Hairy Ape as Mirror Plays
The Theatre: Eugene O'Neill
The Theatre: Welded
New O'Neill Play and the Mayor
All God's Chillun and Others
O'Neill and Racial Myths
O'Neill Rarity in Weak Revival
Drama: The God of Stumps
Desire Under the Elms
Biblical Perversion in Desire Under the Elms
The New O'Neill Play and Some Others
The Great God Brown (Skinner)
The Great God Brown (Young)
Theatre
The Birth of Tragedy and The Great God Brown
After the Battle
The Theatres: Strange Interlude
Eugene O'Neill and the Guild
Strange Interlude and Schopenhauer
O'Neill's Strange Interlude Retains Its Dramatic Power
Reviews of O'Neill Plays in Performance: Strange Interlude
Lazarus Laughed Produced on Coast
Seen on Stage: Dynamo
The Theatre: The American Dramatist
Tragedy Becomes O'Neill
The Theatre: The Top
Our Electra
The Circle Moves Up
Masking Becomes Electra: O'Neill, Freud and the Feminine
A Great American Comedy
Ah, Wilderness Revived by Guild
Singing in the Wilderness: The Dark Vision in Eugene O'Neill's Only Mature Comedy
Great Day for the Irish
The Theatre: L'amour et—Mon Dieu
O'Neill Discovers the Cross
Eugene O'Neill
The Late Plays: Eugene O'Neill's New Play Is Powerful and Moving
O'Neill—at Long Last
Iceman Returbans
The Iceman and the Bridegroom: Some Observations on the Death of O'Neill's Salesman
Stage: Iceman Cometh to Broadway
Absence as Presence: The Second Sex in The Iceman Cometh
Robert Brustein on Theatre: Souls on Ice
Theatre: Long Day's Jourbaney Into Night
Theatre: Tragic Jourbaney
Off Broadway: Returban Jourbaney
Theatre: The Haunted Tyrones
Long Day's Worth the Jourbaney
Review of O'Neill Plays in Performance: Long Day's Jourbaney Into Night
Communal, Familial, and Personal Memories in O'Neill's Long Day's Jourbaney Into Night
Great Day for the Irish
O'Neill Opus Long but Fiercely Great
The Stage: The Image and the Search
Theatre: A Moon for the Misbegotten "and yet . . . "
Theatre
A Moon for the Misbegotten
The Metatheatrics of A Moon for the Misbegotten
Portman, Hayes and Stanley Magnificent in Touch of Poet
Theatre
Theatre: Dream Addict
A Touch of the Poet: Memory and the Creative Imagination
The Stage: Late O'Neill
Theatre: More Stately Mansions Opens
The Stage: Unfinished Mansions
The Brothel in O'Neill's Mansions
Thematic Analysis
The Idea of Puritanism in the Plays of O'Neill
Freedom and Fixity in the Plays of Eugene O'Neill
O'Neill's Many Mothers: Mary Tyrone, Josie Hogan, and Their Antecedents
An O'Neill Chronology
Selected Bibliography
Index