Review (PDF) Three Plays: Desire Under The Elms, Strange Interlude, Mourning Becomes Electra
Winner of the Nobel PrizeThese three plays exemplify Eugene O'Neil's ability to explore the limits of the human predicament, even as he sounds the depths of his audiences' hearts.
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Reissue edition (October 31, 1995)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0679763961
ISBN-13: 978-0679763963
Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #63,703 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #11 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Dramas & Plays > Anthologies #135 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Dramas & Plays > Regional & Cultural > United States #199 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Theater
This is one of these books that I had bought (second hand) thinking distractedly that O'Neill was a pretty big gap in my theater reading and that I should eventually read something that he has written. I've actually only ever seen The Hairy Ape staged, and that by The Wooster Group. If you've ever seen a Wooster Group production, you'll understand that while it is bound to be an experience, it isn't generally an experience which is not necessarily going to tell you much about the play itself. Or, more accurately, it is not going to tell you the usual things about the play itself.In any case, O'Neill.First I read Desire Under the Elms. My reaction was (honestly) a shrug and a mental het zal wel Interesting play, kind of typical melodrama from the period. (I am positive that there are O'Neill scholars out there who can explain to me why this is Not So, and why I am an unlettered barbarian. But there you go.) Insight into the Desire of Woman. Father-son epic struggle. Death. Despair.But then I got to Strange Interlude. Oh, I hated it. I hated O'Neill. I hated the coy technique of sharing the Real Innermost Thoughts of the characters. It was like he took Nina who was already in a cage-- the cage of her time, the cage of being written by a creep of an author-- and then he squared the cage by pretending to have access to her real thoughts. It is a *long* play, and reading it was like having fingers scraping on a chalkboard for its length. I hated it so much that I thought that he did Oona a favor by disowning her.
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