Eugene O'Neill, America's greatest playwright, "The Father of the American Theatre," and the 2nd US Nobel Laureate (and only playwright to be so honored), will be featured in a special St. Patrick's Day A & E Biography, "Eugene O'Neill: A Haunted Life," tonight(3/16) at 8 pm and again at 12 midnight EST. VCR Alert!
"I love life. But I don't love life because it is pretty. Prettiness is only clothes-deep. I am a truer lover than that. I love it naked. There is beauty to me even in its ugliness. In fact, I deny the ugliness entirely, for its vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always closer to a revelation....
To me, the tragic alone has that significant beauty which is truth. It is the meaning of life--and the hope. The noblest is eternally the most tragic. The people who succeed and do not push on to a greater failure are the spiritual middle-classers. Their stopping at success is the proof of their compromising insignificance. How petty their dreams must have been!"
--Eugene O'Neill, from the biography by Barbara and Arthur Gelb
-- from his play Long Day's Journey Into Night -- Edmund Tyrone's monologue in conversation with his father, James Tyrone (note: Edmund is sick with tuberculosis):
EDMUND
You've just told me some high spots in your memories. Want to hear mine? They're all connected with the sea. Here's one. When I was on the Squarehead square rigger, bound for Buenos Aires. Full moon in the Trades. The old hooker driving fourteen knots. I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself--actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within peace and unity and a wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. Then another time, on the American Line, when I was lookout on the crow's nest in the dawn watch. A calm sea, that time. Only a lazy ground swell and a slow drowsy roll of the ship. The passengers asleep and none of the crew in sight. No sound of man. Black smoke pouring from the funnels behind and beneath me. Dreaming, not keeping lookout, feeling alone, and above, and apart, watching the dawn creep like a painted dream over the sky and sea which slept together. Then the moment of ecstatic freedom came. The peace, the end of the quest, the last harbor, the joy of belonging to a fulfillment beyond men's lousy, pitiful, greedy fears and hopes and dreams! And several other times in my life, when I was swimming far out, or lying alone on a beach, I have had the same experience. Became the sun, the hot sand, green seaweed anchored to a rock, swaying in the tide. Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see--and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand let's the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!
He grins wryly
It was a great mistake, my being born a man, I would have been much more successful as a sea gull or a fish. As it is, I will always be a stranger who never feels at home, who does not really want and is not really wanted, who can never belong, who must always be a little in love with death!
TYRONE
Stares at him--impressed.
Yes, there's the makings of a poet in you all right.
Then protesting uneasily
But that's a morbid craziness about not being wanted and loving death.
EDMUND
Sardonically
The makings of a poet. No, I'm afraid I'm like the guy who is always panhandling for a smoke. He hasn't even got the makings. He's got only the habit. I couldn't touch what I tried to tell you just now. I just stammered. That's the best I'll ever do. I mean, if I live. Stammering is the native eloquence of us fog people.
(c) 1955 by Carlotta Monterey O'Neill, All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Do you ever feel like we are talking to ourselves?
Yes, Sweet juan, please do...
for its vices are often nobler than its virtues, and nearly always closer to a revelation....
Well, I think it speaks for itself, Max...but in my humble attempt to qualify the words of O'Neill, here goes:
To perservere while enduring, or indulging in, the dregs of life requires and engenders more of a nobility of spirit that to cruise through an ideal existence. The truth lies in the reality of life, not in some idealized confection. There may be more inspiration gained by examining the life of a prostitute than that of a virgin (or happily married woman), through whatever spirit it is that propels her and enables her to slog through each day of her seemingly mundane existence. Remember, O'Neill was a student of Nietzsche who said, "Man must overcome himself." IMHO
From notes on Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Tad Beckman:
"Nietzsche has also framed this concept in his image of the "übermensch," or "overman." In this vision, man is a temporary creature, a "crossing over." Just as an individual must overcome himself, man himself must be overcome. The overman is not man as we know him; it is a new being, perhaps, unthinkably beyond us and living with new values in the spirit of Yes-saying to life."
(übermensch, of course, has been misinterpreted as superman rather than overman by the Nazis and others for propaganda purposes).
And who's Juan?
Keep on posting, Whit. This is great stuff here! It's the push that's the point, huh? And the giving in?
Like a saint's vision of beatitude. Like the veil of things as they seem drawn back by an unseen hand. For a second you see--and seeing the secret, are the secret. For a second there is meaning! Then the hand let's the veil fall and you are alone, lost in the fog again, and you stumble on toward nowhere, for no good reason!
...yes!
Edmund Tyrone's monologue
I had the good fortune to see the original production of Long Day's Journey into Night with Frederic March, Florence Eldridge, Jason Robards, and Bradford Dillman--without a doubt the most thrilling theatrical experience of my life.
the story of my association with O'Neill is on the discussion forum there, too!WO'N: I didn't realize the extent of O'Neill's influence on you - but tell me, when do we get to hear your musical tribute to your mentor? How about sharing the lyrics to your song?
nk
Here's the review of the
original New York production of
Long Day's Journey Into Night by Brooks Atkinson that appeared in
The New York Times, Nov. 11, 1956. The review ends with this compelling statement:
"Long Day's Journey Into Night" has been worth waiting for. It restores the drama to literature and the theatre to art. The review:
http://www.eoneill.com/artifacts/reviews/ldj1_times.htmAnd, nancyk, while I hesitate to post the lyrics to my song here for a couple of reasons I will PM you the lyrics in entirety, it is called simply,
Eugene.
I saw Helen Hayes (the only cast member I can recall after all these years) at the Hartke Theatre at Catholic University of Washington DC. I found the performances of the actors entrancing, but the play itself was just so profoundly depressing to me that I have been unable to even read the script, let alone see the play peformed.
I remember seeing the film, Desire under the Elms many years ago and being very impressed with it - indeed, I can still remember quite a lot of the detail - but I cannot for the life of me remember who were the actors.
Any ideas?
Rhuby, I empathize; I have these senior moments more and more often. To help you with this particular one, run, don't walk, to
http://www.imdb.com/. Or either wait for Juan aka WO'N or paulb to reply, one.
Well, senior moments certainly figure in my life these days, but I was never good at remembering actors real names. I commit myself totally to believing in the film or play in front of me at the time, and know the characters by their part-name. This is especially so with theatre, but it happens a lot in films, too.
Even when I worked in the theatre, I tended to think of the actors there in terms of there current stage part! (which used to piss themn off no end! But that's the way I am, folks!)
Well, Rhuby, I remember thinking it was grossly mis-cast...Sophia Loren (fine actress that she is) as a New England farm wife?...huh? Tony Perkins IMHO just doesn't have the range or depth for O'Neill. Burl Ives was effective as the overbearing father, though. Here's a full synopsis from
http://AllMovie.com (a great source for all film inquiries):
http://allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll
