Mourning Becomes Electra And The Prodigal Electra And Orestes

Abstract

OFF BROADWAY, this season, a striking psychological portrait of a modem Orestes has been created by twenty-four year old Jack Richardson. His play, The Prodigal, based on the original House of Agamemnon legend, recreates the spirit of Athenian times. In the fifth century B.c., a middle-aged Athenian could have seen during his lifetime the original productions of Aeschylus', Euripides', and Sophocles' plays based on this legend. Today a middle-aged New Yorker could have seen the original productions of two great modem psychological dramas based on the same legend, Mourning Becomes Electra and The Prodigal. The Prodigal is as reflective of today's generation as O'Neill's play mirrored the mood of the preceding generation. For both O'Neill and Richardson are clairvoyant spokesmen of their respective eras. The late twenties and early thirties were imbued with the new discoveries of Freud. Man's fate and destiny were reshaped and re-evaluated by artists as well as scientists in the context of this new knowledge. O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra succeeded in such an undertaking. In his working notes on this play, O'Neill commits himself to create a drama in which he can "give modem Electra figure (Lavinia) in the playa tragic ending worthy of character." He wanted to convey "a modem tragic interpretation of classic fate without benefit of gods-for it must, before everything, remain [aJ modem psychological play-fate springing out of family life."